By Parach Mach
JUBA, South Sudan (AA) - South Sudan on Tuesday expelled a senior employee of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) to leave the country without explanation, the aid organization said Wednesday.
The expulsion comes only four days after the organization’s country director was also ordered to leave the country.
“The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is deeply dismayed about the order for a second senior staff member to leave South Sudan in less than a week,” read the organization's statement.
The NRC has received no formal explanation of the charges against these two individuals, the organization said.
“The order for a second senior staff member to leave is unacceptable,” NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland said. “Aid organizations bringing relief to millions in South Sudan must be permitted to operate without interference, intimidation or fear of expulsion. Humanitarian principles must be respected.”
“Aid organizations cannot operate under these conditions. Without assurances from the authorities that we will be able to operate without interference,” added Egeland.
Both South Sudanese workers were expelled to Nairobi in Kenya.
South Sudan civil war has so far claimed lives of tens of thousands of people, displaced 2.4 million people from their homes and tore the young nation along ethnic lines.