Dakar/Cape Town, Mar. 27, (dpa/GNA) – South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar has been placed under house arrest, his SPLM-IO party said on Thursday.
In response, the peace agreement with President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s SPLM party has been terminated, the SPLM-IO announced, with observers warning the East African country could descend into civil war once again amid the latest escalation of tensions.
A spokesman for the SPLM-IO said security forces entered Machar’s home on Wednesday evening and are holding him and his wife Angelina Teny, the country’s interior minister, captive.
The party blames President Kiir for the action, and accuses him of not keeping his word and lacking the political will to create peace and stability in the country.
South Sudan, with a population of around 11 million, experienced a severe civil war after it gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011. President Kiir and his opponent Machar formed a joint transitional government in 2020, which is now on the verge of collapse.
The domestic political crisis has been escalating for several weeks. On Tuesday the SPLM-IO said that four leading politicians had been arbitrarily arrested. Three other SPLM-IO politicians were arrested at the beginning of March.
Meanwhile, a militia of the Nuer ethnic group, to which Vice President Machar belongs, has been fighting government troops on the border with Ethiopia for weeks. The government has bombed civilian targets in the area, and dozens of people have been killed in the fighting.
The army accuses Machar’s party of fuelling the conflict. Machar, in turn, accuses Kiir of wanting to disempower his supporters.
Nicholas Haysom, head of the UN peacekeeping mission UNMISS, warned that the country’s leadership was on the verge of relapsing into all-out conflict. He called on the parties to immediately cease hostilities and enter into dialogue.
GNA
PDC