South Sudan’s former vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar “is in the care” of the authorities in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations has said, several weeks after he withdrew from the capital Juba during fierce fighting with government troops. After he fled, Machar was replaced as first vice president, a post he held for just a few months under the fragile peace deal.
Advertisement
The U.N. document indicates that the recruitment of children took place shortly after the U.N. Security Council a week ago approved sending an additional 4,000 peacekeepers to the East African country to protect civilians after renewed fighting in the capital, Juba, last month.
But South Sudan’s government said it opposed the deployment and it is not clear how the mission can go ahead without its co-operation.
The escape of Machar to Congo is likely to be a sensitive issue in Juba because he still claims to be the legitimate first vice president.
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 global pressure, signing a peace deal last August.
August 2015: The president signs an internationally-mediated peace deal under which, Machar will return as vice-president.
Separately, according to an internal United Nations memo obtained by Associated Press, the government of South Sudan has been recruiting child soilders to prepare for a renewed conflict.
July 2016: Kiir sacks Machar after a new wave of fighting erupts.
About 70,000 South Sudanese have crossed the border into Uganda since the July clashes, adding to the more than 2.3 million people who have been displaced both inside and outside the country since the civil war began, according to the U.N. The new refugees have overwhelmed humanitarian agencies that are already short on funding. There has been sporadic fighting in parts of the country since Machar and his forces fled, especially in the south.
The Unicef said on Friday (19 August) that more than 650 children have been recruited by armed groups since the start of the year.
The news on Thursday came after a statement by the leadership of the SPLA In Opposition party said Machar had left South Sudan on Wednesday to a “safe country within the region”, without giving any further details on his exact whereabouts.
Advertisement
Renewed fighting risks reversing gains made in 2015, when UNICEF oversaw the release of 1,775 former child soldiers, one of the largest demobilisations of children.
