Vendor Mary (not her real name) at her stand at Juba Street. (Courtesy)

The female vendor who was slapped by the sacked Juba Acting Mayor is calling on the City Council to return her confiscated items and those of her 28 colleagues.

30-year-old Mary (not her real name) also said, she has forgiven ex-mayor Emmanuel Khamis Richard and does not consider taking legal measures over the incident which created a scandal that culminated in the latter’s sacking.

Khamis, the current commissioner of Lainya County was fired on Friday by the Central Equatorial State Governor after he brandished a pistol at road sellers and physically assaulted the person in question.

This prompted a call by the national legislature and concerned members of the public as a video clip posted on Facebook showed him and armed police chasing street vendors along the Seventh-Day roundabout.

But in an interview with Eye Radio, the female vendor said she has forgiven the former caretaker Mayor and will not file a police case against him.

“I want to call upon the Juba City Council Authority to refund the stuff taken by the Acting Mayor because that was the only capital I have now I am jobless,” she said.

“I don’t want to file a police case at all. But I have forgiven him because I have a problem with him because we are human beings, and we all make mistakes. All I am thinking about now is how to get some money because the items taken by the mayor are for my Boss and I have to pay it back.”

The 2 minutes and 9 seconds clip which implicated the former mayor, also showed security personnel confiscating the belongings of the roadside sellers and loading them on a Toyota pick-up.

According to Mary, they were told by an official to wait for the ex-mayor to speak to them.

But on the contrary, she said when the acting mayor arrived with his team from the Gudele suburb, they immediately started collecting the vendors’ stuff.

In an interview with Eye Radio, the survivor said she didn’t know the incident that was captured on camera, or that it would go viral.

“That day, they came when they were on their way to Gudele one of the policemen came to us before the mayor, they told us that the mayor wanted to speak to us,” she narrated how the incident started.

“When they arrived, they jumped out of their cars, and they started collecting our items. When I saw them collecting things from my colleagues, I tried to take my stuff and run away as you saw in the video.”

“One of the policemen came to me and held my hand as you saw in the video, I was putting the canal in my hand because I was sick with Malaria then I put my stuff down I just heard a slap then they collected our things and put them in the car even I didn’t know that this video will go viral like that.”