JUBA, South Sudan
South Sudan’s vice president is urging regional mediators to intervene to protect the country’s fragile peace deal, warning of a return to war amid alleged attacks by government troops on his forces.
Riek Machar accused President
Salva Kiir of violating a 2018 truce in a letter to the regional mediator, the
8-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD.
“The security situation in
South Sudan has been deteriorating for the last few months,” Machar said in the
letter. “Therefore, we request, as a matter of urgency, the intervention of
IGAD and other international partners to prevail on President Salva Kiir not to
take this country back to war.”
There was heavy military
deployment in the capital, Juba, Monday near the international airport and the
presidential palace, highlighting growing tensions.
Puok Both, a spokesman for
Machar, confirmed the deployment of government troops in parts of Juba, saying
“we don’t know their intentions.”
But in a televised speech
later on Monday, Kiir said that “the presence of security forces in the streets
does not mean that there is insecurity in Juba.”
South Sudanese government
troops and forces loyal to Machar have recently clashed in Upper Nile and Unity
states, which are seen as Machar’s strongholds.
There were high hopes for
peace and stability when oil-rich South Sudan gained its long-fought
independence from Sudan in 2011. But the country slid into civil war in
December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions when forces loyal to Kiir
battled those loyal to Machar.
Tens of thousands of people
were killed in the civil war which ended with a 2018 peace agreement that
brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity.
But challenges remain,
including the government’s failure to implement promised reforms including
completing the unification of the army command.
Kiir on Friday issued a decree
in which he offered five command positions in the army and the police to his
rivals, a unilateral decision opposed by Machar.
The U.S., the U.K. and Norway
— the troika supporting South Sudan’s peace deal — said last week they were
concerned that the new outbreak of fighting threatens to undermine the
government’s unity.
A group of United Nations
experts warned in a report last year that “the stability of South Sudan has
remained at risk” as a result of missed deadlines and political gridlock on key
issues in the unity government’s agreement.
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