Trucks await clearance at the Nimule yard, Photo Credit | Daniel Deng

The government has revealed that it will not compensate the families of foreign truck drivers killed along the Juba-Nimule Highway.

This is according to the Deputy Commissioner of the South Sudan National Revenue Authority.

Last week, some Kenyan and Ugandan truckers who went on a 14-day strike at the Elegu border point demanded compensation for their colleagues murdered in South Sudan.

They said a dozen cargo truck drivers have lost their lives bringing goods into the country.

The group also demanded the provision of security escorts and the removal of illegal checkpoints.

The government has agreed to their demands, accepting the issue of victims’ compensation.

Africano Mande, the Deputy Commissioner of the South Sudan National Revenue Authority led the government delegation that convinced the truckers to resume entry into the country over the weekend.

He says the truck drivers should demand compensation from their insurance companies.

“We insisted that every truck driver and every individual coming to South Sudan – whenever they consider South Sudan as a high-risk area, they are supposed to be comprehensively insured so that the insurance companies are supposed to provide compensation for them,” Africano Mande said.

“On our part, we can beef up security and we can go after the negative processes, and some of them have been taken down, their camps are being isolated and as a result, the roads are cleared.”

It is not clear how many foreign drivers have been killed in highway attacks in South Sudan.

Media reports indicate that over 30 foreign truck drivers have been killed so far in road ambushes in the country.

This week, Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers Union has held a crisis meeting with the South Sudan Freight Forwarders Association in an attempt to resolve a crisis that has seen the halting of trucks movement between Kenya and South Sudan.

The two sides condemned the recent killing of Kenyan truck drivers in South Sudan. Union officials claim more than 20 drivers have been killed while ferrying goods into South Sudan territory.