South Sudan’s deposed vice president who’s now a rebel-opposition leader has fled for neighboring Congo, throwing the East African nation’s fragile peace deal further toward limbo just a few years after it was one of the Obama administration’s top foreign policy triumphs. Machar says he will return to Juba only after a regional peacekeeping force arrives and secures Juba.
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Irrigation Minister Mabior Garang de Mabior said that Dr Machar will later travel to Addis Ababa, where he will wait for countries in the region to intervene, but first “he has to regain his strength after a month in the bush”.
Political differences between Mr Machar and Mr Kiir ignited the civil war in December 2013 – and they only agreed to settle their differences under intense worldwide pressure, signing a peace deal last August.
Spokesman James Gatdet Dak said Machar had gone to neighbouring state but would not say where. The heavy fighting between troops loyal to the country’s president Salva Kiir and those loyal to Machar prompted more than 70,000 people to flee across the border to Uganda alone.
FILE – In this Tuesday July 26 2016 file photo, South Sudan’s First Vice President Taban Deng Gai speaks to the Media after being sworn in at the presidential palace in Juba, South Sudan, replacing opposition leader Riek Machar.
The UN Security Council authorized on Friday the deployment of 4,000 UN soldiers in addition to 13,500 peacekeepers already in the country, and to ensure safety in Juba and deter attacks against UN bases. The South Sudan government denied the allegations.
“MONUSCO (the U.N.’s mission in DR Congo) became aware yesterday of the presence of Riek Machar in DRC and the DRC authorities requested MONUSCO to facilitate his extraction and transfer”, Haq told reporters in NY.
January 2014: A ceasefire is signed between the government and the opposition. The government has not yet accepted the force, saying that deploying it without South Sudan’s approval would be a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
“The dream we all shared for the children of this young country has become a nightmare”, said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth, speaking from Nairobi following a trip to Bentiu and Juba in South Sudan.
“Renewed fighting and recruitment in South Sudan risks undermining much of this progress”, according to the statement.
The group believes that around 16,000 children have been recruited into armed groups since December 2013, with forces attacking villages and abducting children, forcing them to fight. The report adds that “Machar is unlikely to be welcomed back in Juba”.
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Machar had taken refuge in Ethiopia several times during the civil war in South Sudan, which began in late 2013.
