By Hou Akot Hou
40-year-old man died of a neck injury after he was boxed by a labourer who was working on his farm at Apial village on Wednesday, in Baac payam of Aweil East County in South Sudan’s Northern Bahr El Ghazal state.
According to the official police reports which emerged, the disagreement arose over the low costs the farm owner paid to the owner of the oxen, which were ploughing his groundnut farm.
When the duo fell into a disagreement, fighting erupted, leading to the death of the farm’s owner, identified as a 40-year-old Diing Keer Mathian, in the neck, which led him to fall and go unconscious without recuperating completely.
Northern Bahr El Ghazal state’s Police spokesperson Madut Ngong Aleu told the media in Aweil town on Friday that the incident occurred after the two men disagreed over the labour costs, as they initially agreed to have two feddans of groundnuts ploughed by oxen and later have a full pay of 300,000 SSP, which the owner didn’t pay fully.
Ngong said the owner of the groundnut farm, Diing Keer Mathian, who eventually died of neck injury from a blow he received from the labourer, 19-year-old Aduol Deng Aduol, paid 35,000 SSP out of 300,000 SSP, which sparked a squabble between leading to serious jabs and exchange of words, which led to fighting that resulted in the death of Diing Keer on the spot.
“According to the preliminary report that we have obtained, the disagreement occurred between a man of the farm called Diiing Keer Mathiang and the owner of the oxen who were called to come and plough the farm ground. In the first place, Diing is said to have paid 35,000 SSP from 300,000 SSP as a fixed amount for the labour, which he didn’t manage. In the process, the suspect identified as Aduol Deng Aduol boxed Keer in the neck, which killed him,” he narrated.
Ngong said attempts were being made by the residents of the entire neighbourhood of Apial village within Baac payam who rushed to the scene of the incident to prop up the victim, Diing, but nothing came to fruition.
“People of Apial who were taken aback on hearing the incident were seriously trying to rush the victim to the health facility of Omdurman, but nothing was going successful as Diing Keer eventually passed away on the spot on the way,” he stated.
Aleu warned people against acting on their own volition without waiting for the rule of law to take its course.
This incident sent a shockwave to the entire residents and beyond, setting a bad precedent for the workers in dealing with the owners of the oxen trained on ploughing the farms.
Farmers have been urged to deviate from traditional farming to modern farming, such as the use of ox-plough, which is less tiring and worth exhausting and time consuming but the latest incident highlights a need to train more people on moving away from taking pride in their cow rearing and train their own cows to alleviate the scarcity of cattle that do the farming activities.