South Sudan urged to release missing activist

By Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya

The Human Rights Watch has urged Kenyan and South Sudanese governments to release information on the disappearance of a South Sudanese opposition official and an activist.

In a report released Monday, the watchdog said three months have elapsed since the disappearance of Dong Samuel Luak, a known South Sudanese activist and Aggrey Idris, an opposition official, from the streets of the capital, Nairobi.

“The men are believed to have been abducted by or at the request of South Sudanese officials and taken illegally to South Sudan, where they are likely to have been abused as so many other detainees before them,” the report said.

The watchdog said Kenyan government and the South Sudanese government denied through Information Minister Michael Makuei that they were in their custody even though there as credible evidence showing that the two had been arrested in Kenya.

“Credible sources told Human Rights Watch and others that both Luak and Idris were detained in the Juba headquarters of South Sudan’s National Security Service on Jan. 26, two days after they were forcibly disappeared from Nairobi and a day before the High Court of Kenya ruled against their deportation,” the report read.

In the past, Kenya has shown a tendency to deport asylum seekers to their country of origin. The organization said it has also documented numerous cases of arbitrary detentions, abuse and torture by military and national security members in South Sudan.

It called on international actors, including the African Union, the Kenyan government and the South Sudan’s government to immediately investigate the case, produce and release the disappeared men, and investigate and hold to account those responsible for their disappearance.