Arua residents flee to Congo over clashes

By Richard Drasimaku            
 
Over 600 residents of Opia and Ayavu parishes in Vurra sub county, Arua district have fled to Congo following a fierce clan fighting over land. At least 207 huts were torched during the attack.
 
The parishes were raided on three occasions between Saturday and Wednesday last week by a rival community from Pajuru parish in Arivu Sub County who claim the residents had settled on their land.
 
They burnt 75 houses in Ayavu and 132 in Opia, and looted animals, bicycles and other valuable household items including food stuff according to Daniel Avutia, the Opia parish chief who said most of those who ran to Congo were women and children.
 
Only iron roofed houses survived the arson, but the occupants also fled out of fears.
One resident said the first attack was carried out at night and the last one in broad daylight in the morning.
 
He revealed that when they called Modest Oguzu the O/C of Ojupala police post for help, he told them that police was fed up of the unending dispute and that they would only go to collect dead bodies after the fighting is over.
 
This infuriated the people who suspected the police to be conniving with the Pajuru attackers.
 
"Some people organized themselves with bows and arrows to attack and destroy the police post. Oguzu was shot with arrow in the raid. Then they laid an ambush for the invaders in which they shot over ten of them including a uniformed UPDF deserter who later died in hospital," he narrated.
 
Following the fierce fighting some children fled with their mothers to their uncles as the men remained behind vowing never to surrender any piece of their land.
 
Faustino Ejua, 36, a village health team member in Ewavini village while wielding a bow and arrows which he calls his machines says he now sleeps under a tree near his burnt houses.
 
He lost the VHT bicycle during the destructive attack which has also left him with only a trouser and a torn shirt.
 
 "They burnt four houses including my brother's. 15 of my family members have run to Congo but for me I take cover with my machines there," he said while pointing at an old fig tree.
 
Majority of the women come in the morning to collect food from the garden and trek back to Congo in the evening but some residents have started recuperating and are beginning to reroof their houses.
 
The fighting has also led to the closure of Oyo and Opia primary schools since the children are either in exile or those who ran to nearby relatives lost their scholastic materials and uniforms in the inferno.
 
 Raymond Ombere, the Arua municipal inspector of schools is coordinating the people from the affected area who are working at the district or outside to mobilize funds for buying scholastic materials for the children, poles and grass to help the affected people rebuild their houses.
 
He called on those in exile to return home saying they should take the disaster like they have fallen down and thus get up to rebuild their lives.
 
 The area is being patrolled by a combined team of police and UPDF soldiers but residents say they no longer trust them after their initial complacency and because they only arrested their own people while shielding their adversaries.
 
They have accused district officials including the chairman Sam Wadri Nyakua and a businessman Samuel Ejidra, the proprietor of the Uzu Brothers enterprise of fraudulently acquiring land in the contested area saying this had compromised the ability of local leaders to objectively intervene in the dispute.
 
"It is true when I went to the land registry I found they have titles for land there. I also went to surveys and mapping department in Entebbe and found that these people did not even go there, so where did they get the map they were trying to use for demarcating the border?" the Vurra county MP Sam Okuonzi said.
 
 Okuonzi said the people of Pajuru, Opia and the newly created Ayavu parishes have traditionally coexisted peacefully until speculators began to wrongfully buy their land.
 
 The ring leader allegedly orchestrating the land sales, the former Arivu sub county LC3 chairman Alex Ondoga was reportedly intercepted by police this week while leading a group of youths armed with arrows but were simply disarmed and left to go free.

The West Nile police spokesperson Josephine Angucia said she did not have enough information about the arrests.