South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar on Monday appealed for help from East African countries 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, reported South Sudan.
Machar, the embattled vice president, said he wants Sudanese head of state and top General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to come to his aid against his President Salva Kiir, whom he has accused of violating a 2018 truce.
Sudan was one of the guarantors of the South Sudanese peace agreement which was signed in 2018 after five years of civil war.
“The security situation in South Sudan has been deteriorating for the last few months,” Machar said in the letter to the regional mediator, the 8-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD. “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.”
The new development comes as South Sudan’s government forces have reportedly surrounded Machar’s residence in Juba.
On Friday, Machar made an appeal to regional and international leaders to intervene to end recent fighting in Unity and Upper Nile states, which are considered his strongholds.
Clashes between South Sudan’s military and forces loyal to Mr. Machar have been reported in various areas for weeks, threatening a fragile peace agreement between him and President Kiir.
Last week, Kiir 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.
On Friday, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway — the troika supporting South Sudan’s peace deal — said they were concerned that the new outbreak of fighting threatens to undermine the government’s unity as a result of missed deadlines and political gridlock on key issues in the peace agreement.
