Bulldozer demolishing illegal settlement at Lokiri village on orders of Commissioner Charles Joseph Wani. 2022. (Photo: Press Office of the Commissioner).

More than 500 land grabbers, including military officers have been arrested in Juba County since January this year, Juba County Commissioner said adding that many have gone unpunished.

Engineer Charles Joseph Wani told Eye Radio that the arrests were made in different localities within the county.

Wani said they used to arrest an average of ten suspected land grabbers on daily basis.

“The estimation is it will reach something of five hundred in all this time because individually and also in groups we arrest them,” he said.

The land grabbing incidents are mostly reported in Garbo, Gumba-Shirikat, Khor Wolliang, and Joppa.

According to Commissioner Wani, Juba County, which also doubles as the state – and the country’s capital – has witnessed unprecedented cases of land grabbing – with perpetrators going unpunished in recent months.

In some of the areas, locals are reported to have been forced out of thei homes in fear of harassment.

But the commissioner warned of punitive measures against land grabbers saying, he has deployed armed forces in the hot spot areas around Juba city.

“First, of course, we put them in police custody and then the legal fraternity, the legal advisors and also the legal administration will come in and they will take their legal producers.”

“I arrest them in all these areas, today this morning I arrest on this side of Referendum in the place called Joppa, we arrested ten people from there. Yesterday we arrested from Garbo and last week we arrest from Shirikat this road going to Nimule, there’s a mountain there is called Jebel Ameanen and in Khor William we arrest people.”

Right groups say land-grabbing remains a security threat committed by senior army and national security generals in South Sudan.

Early this year, the national government set up a committee to investigate such cases across the Central Equatoria State.

But so far, the outcome of the investigations has not been made public.