Ex-VP Riek Machar leaves South Sudan for 'safe' country
South Sudan's former vice-president and rebel leader Riek Machar, who is said to have left the country and is in a "safe" country in the region. AFP PHOTO
What you need to know:
- Machar fled the capital Juba following heavy fighting in the city between July 8 and 11.
- He was subsequently replaced as vice president by Taban Deng Gai, a former friend and ally.
NAIROBI
South Sudan's former rebel leader and ex-vice president Riek Machar has left the country following violent clashes last month and is now in a "safe" country in the region, his aides said.
"(Machar) has now been safely evacuated to a safe country within the region he will hold a press conference within the next 24 hours," Mabior Garang de Mabior, a spokesman for Machar's SPLM-IO party, said in a statement.
The statement did not reveal which country Machar had gone to. His representative in Nairobi, Lam Jok, told the Nation that Machar would hold the news conference “from his location.”
Jok also declined to confirm the country where Machar is hiding.
“There will be a press briefing but we will confirm the time because the chairman will be doing so from his location.
"The update will be about the current events in South Sudan," Jok said, referring to the title Machar used as the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), the rebel grouping that fought President Salva Kiir’s forces since 2013.
Civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup. The fighting has split the country along ethnic lines and driven it to the brink of collapse.
A peace deal signed between the government and rebels almost a year ago has so far failed to end the conflict. And last month Juba was rocked by several days of heavy fighting between President Kiir's forces and those loyal to Machar.
Machar fled the capital Juba following heavy fighting in the city between July 8 and 11. He was subsequently replaced as vice-president by Taban Deng Gai, a former friend and ally.
Gai warned Wednesday that Machar should stay out of politics to allow peace.
On Wednesday the United Nations launched a probe of a hotel attack in South Sudan in which soldiers raped women and assaulted aid workers while UN peacekeepers allegedly failed to act.
Last Friday the UN Security Council approved a US-drafted resolution to strengthen the 12,000-person peacekeeping mission with 4,000 additional troops drawn from regional armies and equipped with a more aggressive mandate.
