Machar who is Chairman and commander-in-chief of the SPLM/SPLMA quitted the country following a botched attempt to assassinate him and abrogate the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS), a statement of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) said on Wednesday.
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“[No] one knows where he is, whether he left South Sudan or still inside the country”.
He was subsequently replaced as vice-president on July 25 by Taban Deng Gai, a former friend and ally.
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.
Tens of thousands of people have died and over two million have been forced from their homes.
August 2016: The opposition figure flees the country.
“We know with peace comes an end to nutritional challenges, the start of education, an end to cholera, it’s just a game-changer that puts the South Sudanese on the right path.” said James Elder.
South Sudan’s rebel leader Riek Machar talks on the phone in his field office in a rebel-controlled territory in Jonglei State, South Sudan, February 1, 2014.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir told lawmakers on Monday that his government is also investigating the attack at the compound.
At the independence ceremony of South Sudan, held in its capital Juba on July 9, 2011, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proclaimed that, after years of violence, “we open a new chapter: a day when the people of South Sudan claim the freedom and dignity that are their birthright…” Indeed, officials in the country’s Yei region have reported recent clashes between the forces. Around 16,000 child soldiers have been recruited since civil war began in December 2013.
“Low levels of funding, together with a large number of new arrivals fleeing to Uganda from South Sudan since July 7, has left the refugee response with no choice but to re-prioritize their focus on those refugees in greatest need”, the statement said.
Earlier this week, the United Nations said it was forced to cut food assistance in half for 200,000 South Sudanese in Uganda.
As the South Sudan conflict moves toward the three-year mark, UNICEF reports that fighting has killed almost 1,200 children.
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Sacked South Sudan first vice-president, Dr Riek Machar, is seeking medical attention in the Democratic Republic of Congo after surviving in the bush in Western Equatoria for almost a month.
