South Sudan’s information minister Michael Makwei said in Juba that the government had “no problem with his coming here”, but he should “denounce violence”.
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South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 but two years later it fell into a brutal civil war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The UN Security Council is planning a trip to South Sudan next week to persuade President Salva Kiir to accept a new regional protection force or face an arms embargo, diplomats said on Friday. Machar was secretly moved from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Khartoum earlier this week.
“Riek Machar left hospital this morning in stable health and has recovered …” He complained about the power given to opposition leader Riek Machar as First Vice President, the placement of rebel forces in the capital of Juba, and the authority given to monitors of the peace deal.
A spokesman for Machar, James Gatdet Gak, confirmed via social media that Machar was in Khartoum and suffered from “exhaustion and a swollen leg”, and he thanked the Sudanese government for the medical care.
Machar, who disappeared just hours after the fighting in Juba erupted, was sacked later by President Salva Kiir. He said Machar’s original plan had been to travel to Addis Ababa, which has previously hosted South Sudan’s troubled peace process.
The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on Tuesday, appointed a retired Dutch Major General to lead a months’ independent probe into the July 2016 violence in South Sudan capital, Juba.
Machar and Kiir have always been rivals, even before South Sudan’s independence in 2011 when they were both commanders in the SPLA force that fought Sudan’s Khartoum-based government.
The two men signed a peace deal in August 2015.
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The United States is the single largest humanitarian donor to South Sudan, giving $1.7 billion since the country’s civil war began in 2013. State Department officials say that while the peace agreement has not been fully implemented, it is still the best way to create peace in South Sudan.
