South Sudan’s predominant opposition occasion has mentioned its chief has been arrested amid warnings of renewed civil conflict on the planet’s youngest nation.
Riek Machar was “in confinement by the government”, and his life was “at risk”, opposition spokesperson Pal Mai Deng mentioned in a video assertion despatched to the media on Wednesday night time.
“His bodyguards were disarmed, and an arrest warrant was delivered to him under unclear charges. Attempts are currently being made to relocate him,” Mr Tang mentioned.
Picture:
South Sudan President Salva Kiir (left) and Riek Machar in Juba in 2019. Pic: AP
He was detained after “more than 20 heavily armed vehicles, forcefully entered his residence”, in line with a Fb put up by Reath Muoch Tang, the international relations committee chairman of the SPLM-IO occasion (Sudan Folks’s Liberation Motion-in-Opposition).
His arrest comes after combating within the north between an armed group allied to Mr Machar and authorities forces, which the UN has warned, may plunge the nation again into full-scale civil conflict.
SPLM-IO joined a unity authorities with president Salva Kiir in a power-sharing deal that ended South Sudan’s five-year civil conflict in 2018, through which round 400,000 folks have been killed.
Simmering tensions between Mr Kiir and Mr Machar’s events changed into renewed battle final month when the White Military, an armed group loyal to Mr Machar, stormed a military base in Higher Nile state and attacked a UN helicopter.
The federal government responded with airstrikes, warning any civilians within the space the place the military group was based mostly to go away or “face consequences”.
Greater than a dozen folks have died for the reason that airstrikes began.
The UN warned on Monday of a renewed civil conflict if the leaders don’t put the nation’s pursuits first.
Mr Haysom mentioned in a press release on Wednesday night time that the nation’s leaders “stand on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict or taking the country forward towards peace, recovery and democracy”.
Earlier this month, a number of of Mr Machar’s senior allies have been arrested by safety forces, which his supporters condemned as a “grave violation” of the 2018 peace deal.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, however the world’s youngest nation has been stricken by battle and instability ever since.
