+By John Adukata
April 30, 2019
Dong Samuel and Agrey Idris Izbon are dead. Putting a sad end to 16 months of worries about their fates, confirmation of the murders of the two South Sudanese human rights activists was delivered by UN officials to their families.
Dong and Agrey had been kidnapped in Nairobi on January 23 and 24, 2017 respectively by reportedly South Sudan’s infamous National Security Service and its Kenyan counterparts. According to Amnesty International, the two were then brought to the “Blue House” – the prison maintained by the NSS in Juba – and then allegedly murdered on or around January 27th.
The “crime” committed by Dong, a noted attorney, and by Agrey, a politician: they had the courage to report in the social media on the fates of other human rights defenders who became victims of the NSS.
The news of the confirmation of the deaths has unleashed a firestorm of indignation in South Sudan’s media and among its people.
The murders are just the latest in a long series allegedly committed by the NSS. In addition to activists, favorite targets of such are journalists who dare to criticize the government, report Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Internationa