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Tag: Riek Machar

  • Pope kisses feet of South Sudan leaders

    Pope Francis on Thursday knelt to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s previously warring leaders, in a dramatic gesture after an unprecedented retreat at the Vatican.

    Pope however urged them to not return to a civil war.

    He also appealed to President Salva Kiir, his former deputy turned rebel leader Riek Machar, and three other vice presidents to respect a peace agreement they signed and commit to forming a unity government in May.

    “I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward.

    READ ALSO: Pope Francis to rebuild churches destroyed by Boko Haram

    “There will be many problems but they will not overcome us. Resolve your problems,” Francis said in improvised remarks.

    The leaders appeared to be stunned as the 82-year-old pope, helped by aides, knelt with difficulty to kiss the shoes of the two main opposing leaders and several other people in the room.

    The pope’s words were made even more pressing as anxiety grew in South Sudan over whether Thursday’s coup in neighbouring Sudan could scupper a fragile peace deal that ended South Sudan’s brutal five-year civil war.

    The Vatican brought together South Sudanese leaders for 24 hours of prayer and preaching inside the pope’s residence in a last ditch attempt to heal bitter divisions a month before the war-ravaged nation is due to set up a unity government.

  • South rebels demand ransome of $200,000 to release Kenyan pilots

    South rebels demand ransome of $200,000 to release Kenyan pilots

    South Sudanese rebels are holding two Kenyan pilots and will not release them until 200,000 dollars is paid to the family of a civilian killed when their plane crashed, a rebel told reporters on Tuesday.

    Lam Gabriel, the rebels’ deputy spokesman, said: “the plane crashed in Akobo, in the Greater Upper Nile region, two weeks ago.

    “When the plane crashed, it took a life. There was a lady that was killed and also there were some animals killed.

    “The relatives of the lady and the owners of the cows are complaining they want compensation.

    “They (Kenyan leaders) have to write an official letter to Dr. Riek Machar and it will come to us to inform of an order, then we will release him.”

    Read Also: Sudan hosts 140,000 S. Sudanese refugees

    Machar, the country’s former vice president, is the head of the largest rebel faction but has been held under house arrest in South Africa since 2016.

    South Sudan’s military spokesman confirmed the two pilots were being held.

    “The plane had a technical problem. It crash-landed and killed a person on the ground,” said Brig.-Gen. Lul Koang.

    “The (rebel) SPLA-IO-appointed governor of the area has demanded the ransom of 200,000 dollars which is beyond normal compensation for any person killed,” he added.

    The Kenyan foreign ministry said it was unable to comment.

    Oil-rich South Sudan has been riven by civil war since 2013.

    The conflict has displaced a third of the population, shut down most of the oil production and wrecked the economy.

    Reuters/NAN

  • U.S. threatens action against S. Sudan if it does not end violence

    U.S. threatens action against S. Sudan if it does not end violence

    The U.S. threatened to take further action against the South Sudan government if it does not end violence and allow United Nation ( UN ) peacekeepers to do their job.

    A month after U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley visited South Sudan and met with President Salva Kiir in the capital Juba, she told the Security Council: “Words are no longer sufficient.”

    “The U.S. is prepared to pursue additional measures against the government – or any party, for that matter – if they do not act to end the violence and ease the suffering in South Sudan,” said Haley, who was the most senior member of President Donald Trump’s administration to visit South Sudan.

    The Trump administration imposed sanctions in September on two senior South Sudanese officials and the former army chief for their role in the civil war and attacks against civilians.

    However, any U.S. push for the UN Security Council to take further action against South Sudan is likely to be resisted by veto power Russia.

    The council sanctioned several senior South Sudanese officials on both sides of the conflict in 2015, but a U.S. bid to impose an arms embargo in December 2016 failed.

    “It is counterproductive to impose targeted sanctions, counterproductive to impose an arms embargo, such measures will not help to break this deadlock and will only further exacerbate the crisis,” Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Petr Iliichev.

    South Sudan spiraled into civil war in late 2013, two years after gaining independence from Sudan, and a third of the 12 million population has fled their homes.

    The conflict was sparked by a feud between Kiir, a Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who is being held in South Africa.

    A fragile peace deal in South Sudan broke down last year and East African bloc IGAD has been trying to revive it.

    “We view as unjust the ongoing attempts to place all blame for the persistent unabated violence on Juba alone, it has done its role, now the opposition must reciprocate,” Iliichev said.

    UN sanctions monitors reported earlier this month that inspite of the catastrophic conditions across South Sudan, armed forces, groups and militias, particularly those affiliated with Kiir and Vice President Taban Gai, continued to “actively impede both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.”

    Reuters/NAN

  • 1st batch of 4,000 peacekeepers arrive war-torn South Sudan: UN scribe

    The first batch of 4,000 peacekeepers arrived war-torn South Sudan,  eight months after the Security Council authorised the deployment of extra troops.

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made this known in a monthly report on the status of the deployment and obstacles facing some 13,000 peacekeepers already on the ground.

    Guterres said “the situation in the country has deteriorated at a rapid pace,”

    The 15-member Security Council approved the additional troops, known as a Regional Protection Force (RPF), in August 2016.

    The approval followed several days of heavy fighting in the capital Juba between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing former Vice President Riek Machar.

    The force is part of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which has been in South Sudan since its independence from Sudan in 2011.

    The country spiraled into civil war, with violence along ethnic lines, after Kiir sacked Machar in 2013.

    “Deployment of some of the first wave elements of the RPF … has begun,” Guterres said in the report.

    While it usually takes several months for the UN to get the troop contributions needed for a deployment, the world body has also had to contend with the South Sudanese government’s red tape and unwillingness to cooperate.

    “It is indeed unfortunate that the first troops associated with the RPF have only begun to arrive eight months after they were initially mandated by the Security Council,” Guterres said in the report.

    He added that as of May 15 there were 31 members of the Bangladesh Construction Engineering Company on the ground.

    The Security Council had threatened to impose an arms embargo if Kiir’s government did not cooperate with the deployment or allow peacekeepers already on the ground to move freely to protect civilians.

    The U.S. put the measure to a vote in December it failed to get the nine votes needed to pass.

    Guterres said that UNMISS “continued to be obstructed and restricted in some cases encountering aggression from government forces.”

    He also said humanitarian aid deliveries were being hindered.

    The UN estimates about three million South Sudanese, a quarter of the population, have fled their homes, parts of the oil-producing country are in famine and top UN officials have warned of a possible genocide.

     

  • South Sudan refugees release UN Congo mission staff

    The UN says South Sudanese refugees on Wednesday released 13 staff members of the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) who were held hostage on Tuesday.

    UN peacekeeping spokeswoman Ismini Palla on Wednesday said: “the camp is quiet and under full control of MONUSCO.

    “All staff have returned safely to their homes. No casualties have been reported. The mission is investigating the incident.”

    The UN estimates about three million South Sudanese have been uprooted by the violence in their country, the biggest cross-border exodus in Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

    UN Goma bureau head Daniel Ruiz told Reuters that they were among 530 people who have been living in the Munigi base, outside Goma, since fleeing South Sudan last August.

    Most are former fighters loyal to former vice president Riek Machar, who have clashed with President Salva Kiir’s forces since July 2016.

    Ruiz said the camp occupants had been demanding for months to be moved to a third country, but no one would take them.

    Congo’s government, mindful of threats to its stability from past refugee influxes, and from the armed groups that frequently roam its lawless east, is also keen to move them.

    On Friday, eight of them agreed to be repatriated to South Sudan’s capital Juba.

    Others fear going back and are frustrated at being confined in the tiny camp in eastern Congo.

     

     

  • 115 soldiers killed in South Sudan clashes

    At least 115 soldiers from South Sudan’s rival factions were killed in gun battles in the capital Juba, a military spokesman for the opposition said on Saturday, amid fears for a fragile peace process in a country still reeling from a two-year war.

    Gunfire erupted on Friday evening near the state house where President Salva Kiir and vice president Riek Machar, former rivals, were meeting for talks, Reuters reported.

    Both men said they did not know what had triggered the latest fighting between their factions and called for calm.

    William Gatjiath Deng, spokesman for Machar’s military faction, said the fighting had occurred near the state house and in army barracks.

    “In the morning we collected and counted 35 (dead) from the SPLM-IO (Machar’s faction) and 80 people from the government forces,” he said.

    Deng said the death toll could rise on Machar’s side “because there are some soldiers seriously wounded.”

    The government side had no immediate comment on the situation in Juba.

    At least five soldiers were killed on Thursday in similar clashes between the two sides.

  • South Sudan’s Kiir appoints political foe as vice president

    South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has appointed his rival and former rebel leader, Riek Machar as his vice president, a decree broadcast on state television said on Thursday.

    The decree said Machar will be the first vice president, but gave no more details.

    Reuters reported that South Sudan has been mired in conflict since December 2013, when clashes broke out between troops loyal to Kiir and soldiers backing Machar, who previously held the vice president position.

  • South Sudan soldiers raped children – UN

    South Sudanese soldiers raped children, burnt people alive in their homes and hunted others for days in swamps in an increasingly brutal war the government had hoped to win with an emergency $850 million military budget, United Nations experts said.

    A panel of experts who monitored the UN sanctions on South Sudan obtained a copy of the emergency budget for January to July 2014, but warned in a report made public on Tuesday that it did not mean South Sudan had acquired everything it wanted.

    South Sudan was plunged into a civil war in December 2013 when a political crisis sparked fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebels allied with his former deputy, Riek Machar, the BBC reports.

    The conflict has reopened ethnic fault lines that pit Kiir’s Dinka people against Machar’s ethnic Nuer people.

    Kiir is expected to sign a peace deal on Wednesday to end the conflict. Machar signed the deal last week.

    The UN experts found that a government offensive in oil-producing Unity State between April and July this year had been “intent on rendering communal life unviable and prohibiting any return to normalcy following the violence.”

    “The intensity and brutality of violence aimed at civilians is hitherto unseen, in what has been so far — without a doubt — an incredibly violent conflict, where civilians have been targeted by all parties to the conflict,” the experts wrote in the interim report submitted to UN Security Council members.

     

  • South Sudan rebels break ceasefire – Unmiss

    South Sudan rebels break ceasefire – Unmiss

    The United Nations (UN) has accused South Sudanese rebels of violating a ceasefire by launching an offensive to recapture its former headquarters.

    The attack on Nasir town was the “most serious resumption of hostilities” since May, the UN said.

    The rebels said they had seized the town in an act of “self-defence”. The government denied the town had fallen.

    Fighting between government and rebel forces broke out in December, leaving more than a million homeless.

    President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar met in May and recommitted themselves to a ceasefire negotiated in January by regional leaders.

    Rebel spokesman Lul Kuang said they launched an offensive because of several attempts by government forces to arrest their commander.

    A South Sudanese child displaced by recent fighting cleans utensils at the Bor camp in Jonglei state on 29 April 2014 Hundreds of thousands of people are living in refugee camps

    “The fall of Nasir now paves the way for military resources to be refocused on Poloich Oil Fields, Maban and Malakal,” Mr Kuang said in a statement.

    South Sudanese army spokesman Philip Aguer denied Nasir had fallen following clashes between the two sides.

    “It is deplorable that this major attack comes at a time when intensive efforts are under way by mediators of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to convince all parties to resume the suspended peace talks in Addis Ababa,” Unmiss acting head Raisedon Zenenga said in the statement.

    “The attack is a clear violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement,” he added.

    South Sudan is the world’s newest state and became independent in 2011.

    Conflict erupted in December after Mr Kiir accused Mr Machar, his sacked deputy, of plotting a coup.

    Mr Machar denied the allegation, but then marshalled a rebel army to fight the government.

    The UN has about 8,500 peacekeepers in South Sudan. They have struggled to contain the conflict.

    Map of South Sudan states affected by conflict Fighting erupted in the South Sudan capital, Juba, in mid-December. It followed a political power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his ex-deputy Riek Machar. The squabble has taken on an ethnic dimension as politicians’ political bases are often ethnic.

     

  • South Sudan rivals ‘vow to end fighting’

    Agency Reporter

    The government and rebels in South Sudan have agreed to end fighting and form a transitional government within 60 days.

    The regional Igad bloc, mediating the conflict, has threatened sanctions if they fail to abide by the agreement.

    It follows a rare meeting between President Salva Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

    Previous deals to end the violence have been broken by both sides, compounding the worsening humanitarian crisis.

    Thousands have now died in the conflict that started as a political dispute between Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar, his sacked deputy, but escalated into ethnic violence, the BBC reports.

    More than a million people have fled their homes since fighting erupted last December.

    Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced the new agreement on Tuesday, after President Kiir and Mr. Machar met on the sidelines of an Igad summit on Tuesday,

    “If they don’t abide to this agreement, Igad as an organisation will act to implement peace in South Sudan. On that, we have different options including sanctions and [other] punitive actions as well,” he said.

    “There has been a growing tendency to continue with the war,” he added, criticizing both sides for breaking a previous ceasefire agreed on May 9.