We don’t kidnap people, criminals do, Noah drivers say
With a growing lack of trust and fear to board Toyota Noah cars in Juba, some drivers of public transport are disappointed that the vice could likely ruin their livelihoods.
“We are not doing that and we cannot do,” John Deng said, a driver of a public transport vehicle.
“Like now a get passengers at the park when one or two or more disembark, and I find another passenger along the road, I pick but since the information about kidnapping people along the road especially using Noah, things have not been okay.”
It is a new development in Juba City with victims and their relatives accusing drivers of tinted Toyota cars of perpetuating the vice.
“I was going to Juba and at the roadside, I stopped a Noah, they filled the other seats and pretended like passengers. They left only two seats empty. I got inside and those people are brown but the driver was a South Sudanese,” a survivor told Eye Radio last week.
A source who survived a kidnapping attempt said the kidnappers who normally pretended to be driving public transport vehicles with tinted glasses took the boy, drained some of his blood, and dumped him on Nesitu road.
“The one who was abducted is my nephew and it was on Monday. He wanted to go to Custom and he stood alongside the road waiting for any public transport to take him to customs,” Francis Medaling, a close relative to a young boy kidnapped last week told Eye Radio.
“A vehicle came, they allowed him to get into the car. They made him sit in the middle, two people were in front. One was the driver and the one was sitting and the two were behind with him.”
He added when they reached Customs Market and the boy told the driver to stop “they kept quiet and speed increased” and when the attempted to call the sister his phone was taken and switched off immediately.
Though Deng called on commuters and passengers to be careful while boarding Noah cars along the roads, he said not all Noah’s vehicles were being used to commit the crime.
“Like my car, as you see has number plates, and glasses are not tinted. Should people also fear I think these are Noah whose glasses are tinted with fake number plates,” Deng said.
Natale Ibrahim, another driver of Noah condemned the act and called on the security to track the perpetrators.
“This is very bad and can make people generalize Noah cars. It is very inhumane behaviour that has not been there in the country. I think those who are doing this should be traced and brought to book,” said Ibrahim.
Investigations
However, the Police Spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Daniel Justine confirmed the incident to The City Review saying Criminal Investigative Departments were doing what they can to bring the perpetrators to book.
“The problem is that most of these issues are not being reported to us, we get the information through the media and have even talked to some victims,” Justine said.
“Our CIDs are following up on the issue.”
Recently, traffic police intensified vehicle search after banning all vehicles with tinted glasses but this has not been effective as some of the vehicle owners questioned the government on how the vehicles enter the country.
It is yet unknown whether or not South Sudan has specifications of vehicles for cars dealers need to import.
However, the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, called on the government to regulate and specify vehicles to be imported into the country to prevent abuse of tented cars by criminals.
He said all the records of tinted vehicles and owners were supposed to be kept well upon entering the country for monitoring and crime prevention purposes.
“Some of the cars are tented right from the factory and the best thing the government needs to do is to regulate vehicles so that tented vehicles should not be allowed to be imported into the country unless under certain circumstances,” said Yakani.
