Amee Bridge in Magwi County. (Photo: Courtesy).

Farmers in Magwi County in Eastern Equatoria State are calling on the government to rehabilitate a collapsed bridge and perilous road linking the area to the Juba-Nimule highway to enable them to transport tons of farm produce to the market.

Ochan Walter Magwi, the head of farmers union in the fertile area near the Ugandan border said since the Amee Bridge crumbled, they have been left with no convenient route to take their yields to the capital.

The Amee Bridge collapsed in 2022 and has since been impassable – cutting off Magwi farmers from the Juba Nimule Highway and forcing them to take the long, costly and perilous Torit-Juba road.

Mr. Ochan said some local farmers are forced to sell the goods to Ugandan businessmen.

According to him, the farmers have been blessed with high yeilds this season, but added that the poor road connectivity to markets in the national capital remains a great challenge.

“Our problem here is that we don’t have good roads. We are now struggling using long routes which disturb us a lot, we have to go via Torit then proceed to Juba in a very bad road condition,” he stated.

“Our lifeline road has been remained impassible; it is the road that connect us very fast to the Juba-Nimule highway. That road makes us reach Juba with our produce very first. We have a lot of produce that should have fed the national market.”

He appeals to the government to rebuild the Amee Junction to enable farm produce from Magwi reach the capital Juba.

On his part, Okee Joseph, the Administrator of Lobone Payam in Magwi revealed that last year’s produce were left to rot in stores due to inaccessible route to markets.

“It’s paining me so much in Lobone. I appeal to the government of South Sudan to help Lobone community. I pray that if they can make the road which can reach Lobone, almost the whole country can get its food from Lobone.”

“Because in this first season, you find that a family harvests over 100 bags, over 70, over 50, 100 plus. Even the food of last year got rotten in the store because we are lacking road. The roadways cannot connect us to Magwi or other places.”

South Sudan remains one of the countries with the most underdeveloped road networks in the world, according to the World Bank.

The world finance organization states that most interstate roads consist of badly or non-maintained dirt roads, with only 300km of sealed roads and one sealed international highway linking Juba to Uganda.

This is despite the government’s allocation of a huge volume of crude oil to Chinese companies to build roads in 2019.

In September 20, 2024, the Commissioner of Ezo County in Western Equatoria made a similar call for the rehabilitation of a 100-mile highway connecting the area with Yambio to enable farmers to transport their produce to the markets.