Hundreds of locals from Unity State capital Bentiu and the surrounding areas have taken to the River Naam to clear the swamps and water hyacinth in defiance of the state government directives. | Courtesy.

Hundreds of locals in Unity State invaded the banks of the Naam River with hand tools Thursday morning to clear the swamps and water weed, in defiance of the state government directives.

A state official said the civilians descended into the river with pangas, sickles, hoes and shovels to remove the quagmire of swamps, believed to have obstructed the water flow into the Nile river.

Stephen Tot Chang, the state Minister of Education and Acting Minister of Health told Eye Radio the civilians mobilized themselves in the morning hours to start the manual clearing of the river.

“This is what is happening this morning. Without notice, when I wake up this morning, I found a lot of citizens in the state capital mobilizing themselves and went into the riverside and started clearing the river,” Chang told Eye Radio on Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, video footages and photos seen by Eye Radio showed a crowd of civilians swelling on the river banks, with some inside the river, manually cutting water hyacinths and swamps with their hand tools.

A man, appearing to be one of the ring leaders is heard speaking through a microphone and giving instructions to the crowd.

The incident happened a few days after President Salva Kiir suspended dredging related activities on the Naam and Bahr El Ghazal basin, pending environmental impact assessment.

Minister Stephen Chang said the civilians are clearing the river bed in defiance of state government directives.

“They are doing this without waiting for the solution of that dredging either to take place or be completely banned. So this is what is happening now. As we speak, the riverside is very full and still people are going there,” he said.

According to Chang, the residents dejected by three years of flooding, believe the controversial step will drain their submerged settlements into the Nile.

The national government had previously attempted to initiate a project, deepening and widening some tributaries of the Nile by removing soil sediments and other material.

The project, which was apparently approved by the cabinet last year, manifested itself after the arrival of dredging machinery from Egypt via Sudan.

However, in the national capital Juba, environmental experts and academia continue to voice fears of possible danger of the project, and called on the government to first carry out an environmental and social impact assessment before dredging the Nile tributaries.