According to Farhan Haq, a United Nations spokesman, Machar was helped during his evacuation by the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) before he was handed over to the Congolese government.
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Today in Juba security prevented circulation of the newspapers Al Maugif and Nation Mirror, reportedly because of news about Machar, sources said.
“(Machar) has now been safely evacuated to a safe country within the region he will hold a press conference within the next 24 hours”, Mabior Garang de Mabior, a spokesman for Machar’s SPLM-IO party, said in a statement.
After renewed clashes with President Salva Kiir’s army in the capital, Juba, in early July, Machar and fighters supporting him left the city, putting the country’s peace deal in limbo.
First Vice President Taban Deng Gai made the remarks on Wednesday during his visit to Kenya where he briefed President Uhuru Kenyatta on the progress of the implementation of the South Sudan peace agreement.
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A spokesman for the DRC government, Lambert Mende, denied they had been in touch with any party on helping the former South Sudanese vice president but Haq said Machar was extracted from an area close to the border with South Sudan.
South Sudan initially rejected the resolution, claiming it “seriously undermines” its sovereignty, but later softened its stance.
Most South Sudanese who are Dinka, the largest ethnic group of South Sudan’s 12.5 million people, support their tribesman Kiir. In April, Mr. Machar, accompanied by some 1,000 troops, returned to the capital Juba to resume his post as vice president, following last August’s signing of the power-sharing accord.
Mr Gai met President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi in what the South Sudan deputy ambassador to Kenya Jimmy Deng said was part of planned shuttle diplomacy to get the region to accept the recent changes in leadership.
“Those who say he left the country should be the ones you should talk to”, information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, told reporters on Friday in Juba.
This AFP file photo taken on February 10, 2015 shows child soldiers sit with their rifles at a ceremony for their disarmament in South Sudan overseen by UNICEF. Hundreds of civilians died in the July fighting.
South Sudan has been embroiled in an ethnically charged war since 2013, only two years after it gained independence from Sudan.
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The United Nations Security Council voted this month to send 4,000 additional peacekeepers to South Sudan in recognition of the deteriorating situation, but so far peacekeepers have been able to do little to prevent the country from sliding backwards towards war. Juba has not agreed to the deployment of this force.
