Two Kenyan doctors were arrested after engaging in a fistfight while on a plane in South Sudan.
The two, who are aid workers, were detained in the northwestern part of South Sudan for engaging in a fistfight aboard a flight in Northern Bahr El Ghazal region.
Police in Aweil, the capital city of the Northern Bahr el Ghazal region, confirmed they were holding Nicholas Wamwangi and Kelvin Kimani.
The duo works for a European Church Aid group. They had boarded a plane from Juba International Airport before a fistfight broke out mid-air disrupting the journey and breaking aviation regulations.
Upon landing at Aweil airstrip, the duo could still not iron out their differences and South Sudan media is reporting that the two medics fought in the presence of police officers.
“The two aid workers, believed to be gynaecologists, were arrested on Saturday last week. According to information from one of the passengers, they started fighting when the Kush Airlines plane left Juba until it landed in Aweil, and again, fought in front of police at the airstrip," Captain Guot Guot Akol, the police spokesperson in Northern Bahr El Ghazal, told the press.
“We are now investigating the two Kenyans. These people waited for 30 minutes, and when the flight took off, they started fighting inside the aeroplane,” Akol added.
Akol noted that the fight scared other passengers who were on board, with some suspecting that the two were criminals as they could not understand why members of a society would fight on a plane.
“We tried investigating them and their excuse behind the fight was very raw. They claimed to be drunk, but the statements we got from the passengers is that there was no indication of these two people being drunk while at the airport in Juba, and they were even friendly to each other," he added.
The duo also raised suspicion with the police since they could not explain why they were flying in the Aweil region. He also added that International Police was also probing the duo.
“I will leave this investigation to the International Police (INTERPOL) because it is their mandate to investigate any foreign suspicion,” he remarked.
Captain Akol added that one of the men's passports showed that he had travelled to various parts of the Middle East.
