South Sudan’s First Vice-President, Riek Machar, has been placed under house arrest, according to his party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM/IO).
An armed convoy led by top security officials, including the defence minister, reportedly entered Machar’s residence in Juba late Wednesday, disarming his bodyguards.
“Technically, Dr. Machar is under house arrest, but the security officials initially tried to take him away,” said Reath Muoch Tang, chairman of SPLM/IO’s foreign relations committee.
The government has yet to comment on the development.
The UN has warned that South Sudan is on the brink of a return to civil war, citing escalating tensions between Machar and President Salva Kiir in recent weeks.
Machar, a longtime rival of President Kiir, agreed to a peace deal in 2018 to end a five-year civil war that claimed nearly 400,000 lives. However, their relationship has remained tense, with ongoing ethnic divisions and sporadic violence.
The SPLM/IO also reported that Machar’s wife, Angelina Teny, who serves as the country’s interior minister, was detained alongside him.
“An arrest warrant was delivered to him under unclear charges,” Tang said, condemning the act as a “blatant violation of the constitution and the Revitalized Peace Agreement.”
The UN mission in South Sudan has warned that the country risks losing its “hard-won gains of the past seven years” if it plunges back into conflict.
“Tonight, the country’s leaders stand on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict,” the mission said in a statement on Wednesday.
Violations of the 2018 peace deal “will not only devastate South Sudan but also affect the entire region,” it added.
The British and US embassies have scaled down their diplomatic staff and urged their citizens to leave the country, while the Norwegian and German embassies have closed their operations in Juba.
The escalating tensions come amid renewed clashes between forces loyal to the two rivals in the northern town of Nasir in the oil-rich Upper Nile State.
