The detention of the first vice-president of South Sudan, Riek Machar, under the resistance of the houses, effectively collapsed the peace agreement which ended the civil war 2013-2018, announced its party on Thursday.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan called for restraint, claiming that the country was standing on the brink of relapse in a generalized conflict.
“This will devastate not only South Sudan, but will also affect the whole region,” said a procedure in a statement.
The five -year civil war, which was largely waged along the ethnic lines, made hundreds of thousands of deaths in the country which obtained the independence of Sudan in 2011.
Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, vice-president of the Sudanese people of the Sudanese people of Machar in the opposition (SPLM-IO), said that the detention of Machar meant that the agreement had been “repealed”.
He “effectively brings the agreement to a collapse, so the prospect of peace and stability in South Sudan has now been seriously endangered,” he said.
William Ruto, president of neighboring Kenya, said on X that he had a phone call with Kiir during the arrest and detention of Machar and sent a special envoy to Juba to try to defuse the situation.
Ruto said he had consulted Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, and Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia – two other border regional powers of South Sudan.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission in South Sudan said the arrests have marked a detangling of the peace process.
“The deliberate targeting of opposition leaders and civilians represents a reckless contempt for international law and the future of the country,” said Yasmin Sooka, president of the commission, in a statement.
The African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on the Development of the Regional Economic Bloc also called for restraint.
The South Sudan army and government spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comments on MACHACHR or the party’s declaration on the peace agreement.
The UN calls for commitment to peace
The army was widely deployed near Machar’s house on Thursday, said a journalist from Reuters. On Wednesday, the UN reported fighting between forces faithful to President Salva Kiir and Machar near Juba.
The American Bureau of African Affairs urged Kiir to release Machar and called on the leaders of South Sudan to “demonstrate the sincerity of the commitments set out in peace”.
The South Sudan coalition government has been slow to promulgate key dispositions from the peace agreement, which includes the national elections and the unification of their two forces in an army.
Political analysts say Kiir has tried to strengthen his position by bringing together some of the most senior allies in Machar, inviting the Ugandan army to secure the capital’s adviser and appoint Benjamin Bol Mel as the second vice-president.
They say that Kiir, 73, prepares Bol Mel, a businessman on the list of American sanctions on his links with construction companies accused of money laundering, to succeed him. South Sudan said at the time that the Decision of the Bol Mel Black List was based on misleading information.
The United Nations had already warned that violence in Nasir, about 450 kilometers northeast of Juba, and an increase in the speech of hatred could rekindle civil war according to ethnic lines.
