Woja Emmanuel who works for Eye Radio was abducted by gunmen who were wearing masks near Eye Radio at Jondoru area of Juba - Courtesy

An Eye Radio’s editor, Woja Emmanuel who was kidnapped yesterday by unidentified gunmen in Juba has been found.

According to Woja, he was picked up a few meters away from Eye Radio’s premises at around 9 O’clock on Wednesday morning by men who were driving a tinted white Harrier car.

He said one of the kidnappers who pretended to have known him first called him by name and wanted to hug him.

In reply, Woja said he asked the man where he had known him from, before he was put at gunpoint and forced into the car.

According to Woja, while he was being driven away, he was made to drink from a bottle and became drunk.

He was then driven to an unknown location where they questioned him on issues related to politics and then drugged him.

He later escaped at around 8 pm when the kidnappers dumped him around Rajaf west.

Not knowing where he was, he walked through the bush, crossing streams until he found himself at Lologo 2 police station.

South Sudan ranked fourth on Committee to Project Journalists’ 2021 Impunity Index, which calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of a country’s population.

It adds that killers of journalists still get away in many countries with no one held to account in 81% of journalist murders during the last 10 years.

Last week, the National Security Service refuted a report that it illegally detained eight journalists while covering a press conference at the national parliament in Juba.

The NSS were responding to a call by the Committee to Protect Journalists urging the South Sudanese authorities to cease harassing and threatening journalists for their work.

Woja however said the kidnappers told him that they will still come after two unnamed Eye Radio journalists.