South Sudan opposition says peace deal has collapsed after arrest of its leader
Riek Machar was ‘in confinement by the government’ and his life was ‘at risk’, opposition spokesman Pal Mai Deng has told the media.
South Sudan’s main opposition party has said a peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war has collapsed, following the arrest of its leader Riek Machar a day earlier.
The party’s deputy chairman, Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, said in a statement that the agreement “has been abrogated” and that Mr Machar’s arrest shows a lack of political goodwill to achieve peace and stability.
The UN warned on Monday that the country was teetering on the edge of a renewed civil war following fighting in the north between an armed group allied to Mr Machar and government forces.
South Sudan’s five-year civil war, in which 400,000 people were killed, ended in a 2018 peace agreement that brought President Salva Kiir and Mr Machar together in a unity government. Mr Machar is one of the five vice presidents in the country.
Mr Machar was “in confinement by the government” and his life was “at risk”, opposition spokesman Pal Mai Deng said in a video address to the media on Wednesday night.
The head of the UN mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, said following reports of the detention of Mr Machar all parties should “exercise restraint and uphold the Revitalised Peace Agreement”.
Tensions have been increasing between Mr Kiir and Mr Machar’s parties and escalated in March when the White Army, an armed group loyal to Mr Machar, overran an army base in Upper Nile state and attacked a UN helicopter.
The government responded with air strikes, warning any civilian in the area where the army group is based to vacate or “face consequences”.
More than a dozen people have died since the air strikes started in mid-March and the UN warned of a renewed civil war if the leaders do not put the country’s interests first.
“Tonight, the country’s leaders stand on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict or taking the country forward towards peace, recovery and democracy in the spirit of the consensus that was reached in 2018 when they signed and committed to implementing a Revitalised Peace Agreement,” Mr Haysom said in a statement on Wednesday night.
An opposition official described 20 heavily armed vehicles arriving at Mr Machar’s home where he was arrested alongside his wife.
“His bodyguards were disarmed, and an arrest warrant was delivered to him under unclear charges,” said Reath Muoch Tang, an official in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army – In Opposition.
The African Union Commission’s chairman, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, said he would deploy a team to Juba “as part of efforts to de-escalate the situation”.
In a statement on X, the US State Department’s bureau of African affairs urged Mr Kiir to reverse the house arrest and “prevent further escalation of the situation”.
The chairwoman of the UN commission on human rights in South Sudan, Yasmin Sooka, said on Thursday that “the deliberate targeting of opposition leaders and civilians represents a reckless disregard for international law and the country’s future”.
In early March, several of Mr Machar’s senior allies were arrested by security forces, an action his supporters condemned as a “grave violation” of the peace deal.
Germany and Norway have temporarily closed their respective embassies in Juba. The British Embassy said it had temporarily reduced its staff with consular services “severely limited”.
