Awerial County authorities have detained traders’ union leaders protesting alleged growing night burglary incidents at the Mingkaman market.
On Tuesday, the traders closed their shops after nine others were broken into in the course of two weeks, with the latest burglary recorded on Monday.
This, according to some of the shop owners who spoke to Mingkaman FM, was to draw the attention of the concerned county authorities and subsequently “do something about it”.
But the county commissioner, who accused the protest leaders of incitement, on Wednesday ordered for their arrest The traders are: Thon Mapiou Deng, Aguto Mawel Aguto, Abdulaziz Ali and Habass el Habinat.
“These four men were discovered to have incited the traders, because they had been moving from shop to shop informing the traders to protest by closing the shops,” said Philip Mawut Garang, county commissioner.
The leaders had also demanded for compensation for the goods stolen, partly because they said they were each contributing 100SSP to night patrols to protect the shops.
“These people will have a case with the government because they are pushing for something that was not allowed by the government,” he continued.
Attempts to get other traders to comment on the detention of their colleagues were not successful as they said feared possible reprisals.
Meanwhile, the traders had to reopen shops this morning after the county authorities threatened to withdraw security personnel – a situation that could see them lose their goods.