Reports indicate that South Sudan has summoned Kenya’s envoy to Juba, Amb. Samwel Nandwa, to protest an alleged encroachment on its territory. A statement issued by South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation says Juba wants a diplomatic solution to the dispute. “Hon Mayiik Ayii Deng met with the Kenyan Ambassador to South Sudan (Samuel Nandwa) to discuss areas of mutual concern. Issues concerning our mutual border were raised,” said the statement, referring to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. “The minister, on behalf of the government of South Sudan, would like to assure all South Sudanese citizens that the highest levels of government are aware of the sensitivities at the border and are working in cooperation with our neighbours to ensure peace, prosperity and maintenance of border integrity, it said. Deng met with the Kenyan diplomat on Wednesday, February 8, after clashes between South Sudan’s Toposa and Kenya’s Turkana pastoral communities which routinely cross their borders in search of water and pasture for their livestock rocked the border. In South Sudan, local and state officials in Eastern Equatorial State claimed in several interviews with the media a week earlier that a convoy of Kenyan security officers strayed briefly into South Sudan territory. The two countries reportedly have a portion of their border largely undetermined at the Ilemi (also called Elemi) Triangle, a sparsely populated area of about 14,000 square kilometres. Ilemi is on the fringe of southern South Sudan, which is believed to be rich in oil, and at the top end of Turkana, a Kenyan county where Tullow Oil discovered oil in 2012.
