A 21-year-old mother, Akon Lual Ayii, killed her two children aged one and three, and tried to commit suicide in the Northern Bahr El Ghazal State capital, Aweil Town, last Friday, the police said.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Captain Madut Ngong Aleu, the South Sudan National Police Service’s Spokesperson in the state, said Akon Lual Ayii murdered her children by suffocation.
“On 4 September, a woman identified as Akon Lual Ayii, 21, suffocated her two children to death. The children were identified as a daughter called Angong Ngong Akuoch, three, and a son, Akuoch Ngong Akuoch, one,” he said. “She tried to commit suicide, but she was rescued by the neighbors and taken to hospital on the same day.”
According to the preliminary investigations, the accused claimed that she had been mistreated by her husband, Ngong Akuoch, a reason she murdered her kids to make it easy for her to leave the marriage completely.
“She is now under investigation and is facing murder and suicide charges under the South Sudan Criminal Code 2008,” Capt. Ngong stated. “According to the investigations, the accused claimed that she has been mistreated by her husband and that is why she took the lives of her children to ease her separation from the man.”
For his part, Malong Bak Malong, First Deputy Chairperson of the Northern Bahr El Ghazal State Civil Society Network, attributed the incident to the current economic hardships.
“Such incidents are connected with current living conditions, and people who commit such crimes are the ones who have lost hope,” he said. “Our message to the communities is that people must be patient.”
He warned against taking out problems on innocent children, saying the latter are the future.
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