Machar says he will return to Juba only after a regional peacekeeping force arrives and secures Juba.
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United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Congolese authorities had asked the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission there to help transfer Machar and his family from a location near the border with South Sudan to elsewhere in DR Congo.
Another spokesman, Mabior Garang, said in a statement that Machar’s self-exile followed a “botched attempt to assassinate” him.
According to a source close to the matter, Mr. Machar could stay in Kisangani ( center -north) but no official source has confirmed this information.
Gatdet Dak did not confirm media reports that Machar had arrived in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN told Kiir that any political changes must be consistent with the peace deal, which stated that the vice president must be chosen by the South Sudan Armed Opposition.
Early this month, the South Sudan government agreed to the deployment of the protection force after a crucial regional summit held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa attended by East African leaders including President Kenyatta.
Last year, President Barack Obama issued a partial waiver to South Sudan from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, allowing the U.S.to continue military assistance to support South Sudan’s peace process. But Haq said Machar was extracted from an area close to the border with South Sudan.
UNICEF estimates that 16,000 child soilders have been recruited since civil war began in 2013 and is now urging for their unconditional release.
With that as a backdrop, security in South Sudan is seen to have melted down following July’s violence in Juba that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. Its mission in Juba declined to comment on whether it had any part in evacuating Mr. Machar, but the mission has maintained its full impartiality throughout the conflict.
FILE – In this Sunday Dec. 29 2013 file photo, displaced South Sudanese children gather around a water truck to fill containers, at a United Nations compound which has become home to thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting, in the capital Juba, South Sudan.
A peace agreement signed in August 2015 has so far failed to stop the fighting in the world´s newest nation, independent only since 2011.
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“At this precarious stage in South Sudan’s short history, UNICEF fears that a further spike in child recruitment could be imminent”, he added.
