A cleaning campaign funded to $50,000 as an independence package for the citizens was launched by the Eritrean community in Juba, in partnership with the Central Equatoria State government. 

The cleanup campaign launched on Saturday in Custom Market in Juba and the Eritrean Ambassador to South Sudan addressed the media. Yohannes Teklemicael said the Eritrean community would continue to support South Sudanese in various ways as they mark the day of freedom.

The Ambassador noted that the cleanup campaign at Custom Market was one of Eritrea’s contributions toward a clean Juba. “On this occasion of independence, we remembered the martyrs of this sisterly, the South Sudanese and Eritrean martyrs, by launching a cleanness campaign for Juba”. 

Yohannes stated that a campaign of this sort is mostly put together by the Eritrean community every year and it entails cleaning marketplaces to support the government in its policy of keeping Juba clean. “We usually do it yearly; we usually organize it every day before the independence of South Sudan,” he said.

Amare Gebreab, the head of the Eritrean community in South Sudan, claimed that despite their country’s financial difficulties, the Eritreans contributed $50,000 to the effort to clean up the collected trash in Custom Market. “The cost is very high, we have injected $50,000 into this cleanup campaign in the market”, he said. 

He continued by saying that the city and the state recruited more than 500 individuals to clean up the market and that trucks were also hired to gather trash.

Emanuel Adil, the governor of Central Equatorial, urged the populace to adopt the motto “Keep Juba City Clean” as a shared obligation. “This campaign means that everybody should manage waste right from the house,” he said.

He continued by saying that the government is launching a significant push to combat one of the problems facing Juba residents: littering and improper waste and garbage management.