Ugandans flee S. Sudan after motorbike ban
An order from the ministry dated August 16, called for an end to licensing motor cycles owned by foreigners in the country. It also said, foreigners were not allowed to provide a commercial taxi service using motorbikes, curtailing a popular method of public transport in South Sudan.
Anyone found contravening this order will have their motorcycle confiscated and will be prosecuted by the courts.
The announcement followed a spate of boda boda related accidents and thefts. But some analysts say its underlying motive was to prevent foreigners from taking away jobs from locals.
The people who use motorcycles to go and rob, do not specifically ride boda bodas.”
The people who use motorcycles to go and rob, do not specifically ride boda bodas,” said Abraham Jok, chairman of motorcyclists in South Sudan.
Without a means to earn a living and fearful of violence, hundreds of Ugandan boda-boda operators are trying to flee the country.
Nsumuga John, Secretary General for the Ugandan Community in South Sudan, told The Niles that his fellow Ugandans are now trying to return home. His office has received hundreds of complains from Ugandan boda-boda riders. Some complained that their bikes had been confiscated while others had been beaten, he said. Some criminals are now using the ministers’ statement as an excuse to rob foreign boda-boda riders, he added.
He said his office and the Embassy of Uganda were negotiating with South Sudanese authorities on the issue. Nsubuga said they want the Ministry of Interior to give foreign boda-boda-riders, especially those from Uganda, at least three months notice to organise themselves, arguing that some of them had borrowed money from banks from Ugandan to buy their bikes.
Andrew Kuol Nyuon, Inspector General of Police, in his office, May 1.
But Andrew Kuol Nyuon, Inspector General of Police, said that his ministry ordered all foreign commercial boda-boda riders in the country to stop their work to cut down on crime.
He added: My minister didn’t target only Uganda Nationals but all foreign commercial bike riders […]. We need to curb down the ongoing insecurity and crimes in the country, mostly at night.”
He warned South Sudanese nationals not to harass foreigners.
Taban Isaac Lule Tone, a Ugandan boda-boda operator, said he had been feeding his Kampala-based family with the money he earned from driving passengers. I really don’t know how my family will survive now we have been stopped from operating in South Sudan,” he told The Niles.
The motorcycle organisation has details on about 5,000 registered motorcyclists, of which 2,100 belong to foreigners, mostly Ugandans, then Eritreans and Ethiopians.
At first I thought it was a joke, but later I found all security forces were on road looking for and ready to arrest foreign boda-boda operators in town.”
James Mutazibwa, a Ugandan boda-boda operator in Melekia described his shock at the announcement. At first I thought it was a joke, but later I found all security forces were on road looking for and ready to arrest foreign boda-boda operators in town.”
James, said, most of his friends are now feeling the country. He added that more than 100 of his colleagues have had their bikes stolen by people claiming to be police officers, who stopped them on the 192-kilometre Juba-Nimule road, which links the South Sudanese capital with the Ugandan border.
I lost two bikes which were taken from my house by some people who claimed to be police officers,” he said.
