Photo: The Citizen
Dar es Salaam —
Tanzanian pilot Mohammed Nasser, who was detained by South Sudanese
rebels, has been freed, the local media in the war-torn country reported
yesterday. According to the report by Sudan Tribune, the pilot was
freed with his charted plane by SPLM-IO led by Riek Machar on
"humanitarian" grounds.
Sudan Tribune
quoted rebels director of public relations Garang Mabior, saying the
pilot was released without any conditions and dismissed as untrue
earlier reports that they had demanded the release of the Tanzanian
national with the hope that he would be exchanged for Machar's spokesman
James Dak, who is being detained.
"There was never
such a demand. This is just usual propaganda of Juba to think that The
United Republic of Tanzania is supporting our movement, when no such a
thing exists... The Tanzanian pilot, who was sent by the Juba regime to
the SPLM-IO liberated territories without his knowledge, believing he
would be harmed for their propaganda purposes, has been released today
with his plane on humanitarian grounds," said Mabior in a statement
quoted by Sudan Tribune.
The rebels,
however, could not state of the fate of Mr Nasser passenger named Peter
Gatkoi, who is a county commissioner of the region called Payinjiar,
which is under Juba's control.
Last Friday, Sudan
Tribune broke a story of the capture of the pilot operating a plane
chartered by South Sudan government in Ganyliel county in Unity State.
The paper then
quoted Mr Nesser as saying he could not contact the Tanzanian
government, but blamed the Juba administration for sending him to a
rebel controlled area without informing him.
"There is no one I
can blame, rather than the government that told me the area was secured
and under their full control, yet we ended up in the hands of the
opposition forces on landing in the area," Mr Nasser told Sudan Tribune
over phone.
According to John
Tap Puot, the rebel-appointed commissioner in the area, the pilot lacked
proper identification documents and they had to detain him to invest
his case
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