Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) spokesman Mabior Garang de Mabior said the warlord “has now been safely evacuated to a safe country within the region”.
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Following clashes with President Salva Kiir’s army in the capital Juba in early July, Machar and his rebel forces left the city.
However, renewed fighting erupted in July, killing hundreds of people and forcing Machar’s troops out of Juba.
Last week, the UN Security Council approved the deployment of an additional 4,000-strong peacekeeping force in South Sudan, after the July infighting threatened to send the country back to all-out civil war.
President Kiir relieved Machar of his post as vice president and appointed the Mines minister, Taban Deng Gai as first vice president in the interim government.
The latest developments mark a new twist in the heated rivalry between President Kiir and Mr. Machar, the most prominent players in South Sudan, which achieved independence from Sudan in 2011, but has been gripped by civil war since 2013.
Mr. Machar had gone to a neighbouring country, his spokesman said. The government asked them to facilitate the group’s transfer from an area near the DRC-South Sudan border to a location inside Congo which the United Nations has not revealed.
“At this precarious stage in South Sudan’s short history, UNICEF fears that a further spike in child recruitment could be imminent”, he said in a statement released in Juba, expressing fears that renewed conflict that could put tens of thousands of children at ever greater risk.
Dak confirmed Machar had been successfully relocated outside the country Wednesday, exactly a year after he inked a peace deal with his rival, President Salva Kiir.
A peace deal was signed between the two leaders in 2015, but has since been repeatedly violated repeatedly by fighting.
Peter Biar Ajak, a co-director for South Sudan at the International Growth Center, said Machar had no choice but to flee before his forces were decimated. His representative in Nairobi, Lam Jok, told the Nation that Machar would hold the news conference “from his location”.
A spokesman for the DRC’s government, Lambert Mende, denied it had been in touch with anyone about helping the former South Sudanese vice president.
Gender-based violence is also on the up UNICEF warned, a worrying trend in a country where violations were already rife. The peace deal has been violated repeatedly by fighting.
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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.
