The leadership of the National Salvation Front (NAS) has
refuted any responsibility for the deadly bus attack that happened on the Juba-Nimule
Road on Tuesday morning.
The attack resulted in the death of at least one person
and the injuries of eight, including one National Security Service personnel.
While speaking to the media, SSPDF Spokesperson Gen. Lul
Ruai Koang said the attack was carried out by NAS.
“NAS strongly refutes the cheap and baseless lies of
SSPDF Spokesperson that NAS is responsible for the bus attack; this statement
is false and must be treated with the contempt it deserves,” the statement
reads.
The NAS spokesperson, Samuel Manse, claims that the
purported SSPDF statement is essentially an attempt to hide the sad regime's
inability to protect South Sudan's territorial integrity and people's safety
throughout, not just on the Juba-Nimule Road.
He claims that the only area in South Sudan with
effective security is J1, President Kir's official residence; all other areas
of the nation are completely unprotected.
Samuel explained that the R-TGoNU is making a desperate
attempt with the bogus accusation against NAS to deflect attention away from
the ongoing and crucial discussion about the legitimacy of the regime among the
people of South Sudan, the region, and the world.
“The R-TGoNU is now illegitimate and unconstitutional,
and this is the importance of the discussion that they want the people not to
be engaging in—the regime out of no substance labeled NAS as a regional threat,
just in an attempt to solicit for regional and international sympathy and
favor,” he said.
The NAS leadership claims that SSPDF operatives carried
out the ambush as robbery, targeting specific individuals and consignments.
As a result, NAS claims the SSPDF spokesperson was quick
to respond in order to shift the blame.
“The regime has always orchestrated such attacks on
civilians, including religious people, as in the killing of the two Catholic
nuns on the same Juba-Nimule Highway on 16" August 2021 and the targeted
killings and robberies by state-sponsored unknown gunmen,” Samuel noted.
In the strongest terms possible, NAS says it condemns the
bus attack on innocent civilians commuting along Juba-Nimule Road.
It reiterates its commitment to peaceful dialogue and
negotiation as a tool of resolving conflict in South Sudan.
The National Salvation Front, led by Thomas Cirillo, is
an opposition group that has been active since March 2017.
NAS, which mostly operates in Equatoria, says it seeks to
overthrow South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and install a federal government.
