President Salva Kiir has canceled a trip for the Centenary celebrations in Lui Town of Western Equatoria State due to a surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.
This is according to the press secretary in the office of the president.
Last month, Kiir’s office confirmed that the President accepted an invitation from the ECS community to attend the Centenary celebration which is scheduled for today in Lui town.
However, Ateny Wek Ateny now says health authorities have advised the president to suspend his mission due to the increase in case of the novel coronavirus and the huge anticipated gathering today at the celebrations.
He said president Kiir has delegated the Minister for Presidential Affairs, Barnaba Marial Benjamin to represent him.
“The President has been advised not to go and be in the crowd, he has sent his minister, the minister of presidential affairs. Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin will stand for the presidency,” Ateny told Eye Radio.
The celebration which starts today at the Lui Fraser Cathedral Church is expected to end tomorrow.
Bismark Avokaya, the Bishop of Lui Frazer Cathedral explains to Eye Radio why this year’s event is being conducted there.
“It will be today and tomorrow and then will be over. The celebration is because in 1920 on December 22nd CMS pioneers missionaries came to Lui lead Doctor Kenneth Grant Fraser with his wife Ellen and his sister-in-law Alice,”
“They came to Lui and settled in Lui for missionary work as CMS representatives and they started their work by initiating health services, education and then the church.
“It’s for this reason that we are celebrating the hundred years which we should have done by December last year but for some reason, we postponed it for this year.”
The Centenary celebrations, supposed to have been commemorated last year, were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Late Dr Kenneth Grant Fraser is commonly remembered, was a Scottish missionary doctor and educator in Southern Sudan by then, specifically working among the Moru people in greater Mundri.
He was born in 1877 in Scotland. He died in Lui, South Sudan on 10 February 1935.