By Garang John
… On March 6th, 2023, we woke up to a shocking news, solitary confinement number 11 (next to our filthy toilet) is flooded with blood from a lifeless body whose intestines have sprung out from the stomach! My cellmate who requested the previous day to be transfered to a separate cell, Mr. Yai has taken his life away!
Yai, a native of Nyamlel from Northern Bahr El Ghazal, joined my cell a day after the Ethiopian man, I described in one of my diaries left. By the time I got arrested on January 16, Mr. Yai, a soldier of the national security has already spent 4 months in detention without investigation.
As part of his side hustle, Yai works as a security guard at night in the company building belonging to the first daughter, Adut Kiir Mayardit. His immediate boss at NS secured a fat contract for security service from Ms. Adut Salva Kiir and that officer sent Yai there. The money goes to the boss in form of USD but he pays Yai about 10,000 SSP every month. Yai also does shoe shining at the junction of UNMISS Road, right from the Ministries Road. He does all these to feed his children.
One night, the building currently rented out to the Civil Aviation Authority, next to Crown Plaza Hotel near Juba International Airport was raided by armed robbers at wee hours of the morning. Yai, the security guard who was in his full NS combat engaged with armed robbers inside the facility in a fierce gunfight. He shot dead one armed robber and the rest escaped. In the morning, the body of this giant robber was lying down inside the building with a gun next to him. Security personnel came in the morning, collected the riffle from the robber and took the body to the mortuary. Yai was then arrested.
It turned out later that this armed robber killed within the company complex of Ms. Adut Kiir under construction is a soldier from the presidential guard, Tiger Division, who guards president Kiir during the day and robbed citizens during the night. And to make the matter worse for Yai, the murdered armed thief is a relative of well connected family from Warrap whose next of kin also work at the national security.
The relative of the deceased now made Yai a victim. Some soldiers within the Blue House informed Yai that orders are out and that he was to be killed by fire squad any day. Yai shared this story with me and a day before he left my cell, he got a piece of paper and wrote the name of his brother and told me to locate his family members through my friends from Aweil once I get out and let them know that he was killed at the National Security, in case is taken out any day and doesn’t return to the prison.
I invited our leader inside the prison, known by his nickname, Mark 7, to join me as we counsel Yai. When food was served during the day, Yai refused to eat. I saw him collecting painkillers from inmates and I got worried. Before we were locked into our cells, we forcefully removed the medicines from him. The officer on duty that Sunday, Mr. Anei, was informed.
Yai who had unfortunately collected several sharp objects; rust razor blades, pair of scissors and a knife which I assumed he might have sneaked into the prison during the days he was with others for manual work (tulba) inside and outside the compound of the national security, has tore his stomach and tempered with the intestines, to commit suicide.
By the time our cells were opened for our daily routines, traces of blood could be seen on the corridors of our cells. His body was wrapped in a blanket and taken to Ramciel Medical Center…
I tried my best to reach out to Adut Kiir on this issue immediately I was released but her handlers couldn’t allow me given the fact that I was unexpectedly linked to the video which dented the image of her father. Maybe the handlers thought I was going to beg for money or ask for connections which wasn’t the case. Am sure the crooks managing Adut might have prevented her from getting to know this truth. Yai worked for Adut under horrible conditions but he had to do the job to sustain his family. Serious exploitation of citizens offering services in the company of the first daughter will be elaborated in the book with several other testimonies collected!
… The next PRISON DIARY is at 2 P.M.
(The picture below is one sample of foil papers I collected and used to keep notes in the prison for my DIARY – I will explain how I gathered my tools in a highly guarded facility in another episode).
