At least 100 firearms that were voluntarily surrendered by armed civilians to chiefs in Unity State’s Mayom County were handed over to the state government in Mankien Payam at a ceremony graced by Governor Justice Riek Bim Top on Thursday.
Last month, the governor, state officials, legislators, chiefs, and youth and women leaders, among others, held a conference in Mankien, and one of the resolutions was to embrace and commence peaceful disarmament.
Unity State Information Minister Engineer Gatwich Bipal Both confirmed to this publication on Friday that the voluntary disarmament exercise was progressing well and that chiefs from the 11 payams across Mayom County collected 100 guns, which they handed to the government on Thursday.
He said payam administrators, traditional chiefs, and other influential community leaders are committed to the resolutions of the conference and support the ongoing peaceful disarmament exercise.
“Local authorities entrusted with spearheading this disarmament effort have raised concerns that the rainy season has made some far-flung areas inaccessible and that this has affected progress,” he said. However, Governor Riek strongly urged the local authorities to steadfastly move onto the next phase and ordered that the number of guns collected should exceed the reported number.”
Meanwhile, the paramount chief of Mayom County, who doubles as the chairman of the Local Court in Mayom Town, Justice Puok Tuil, told Radio Tamzauj on Friday that they agreed to disarm peacefully.
“We all agreed to hand over the weapons to the government before they took the action to disarm our youth forcefully,” he stated. “That is why we decided to mobilize the youth to hand over their firearms.”