The detention of South Sudan’s First Vice-President Riek Machar has effectively collapsed the 2018 peace deal that ended the country’s five-year civil war, his party has said.
An armed convoy led by top security officials, including the defence minister, entered Machar’s residence in the capital, Juba, and disarmed his bodyguards late on Wednesday, said the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement In Opposition (SPLM/IO).
Machar was detained alongside his wife Angelina Teny, who is the country’s interior minister, the party added.
“The arrest and detention of H.E Dr Riek Machar effectively brings the [peace] agreement to a collapse,” said SPLM/IO deputy leader Oyet Nathaniel Pierino.
The government is yet to comment on Machar’s reported house-arrest.
Addressing religious leaders on Wednesday, President Salva Kiir said “he will never return the country to war”.
The UN has been warning that South Sudan is on the brink of a return to civil war following an escalation of conflict between Machar and the president that has been building for weeks.
The two leaders agreed in August 2018 to end the civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people. But over the last seven years their relationship has become increasingly strained amid ethnic tensions and sporadic violence.
In a press conference on Thursday, Pierino said Machar’s detention had “abrogated” – or breached – the fragile peace deal.
“The prospect for peace and stability in South Sudan has now been put into serious jeopardy,” he added.
A similar warning was issued by the UN Mission in South Sudan (Unmiss), saying the country’s leaders “stand on the brink of relapsing into widespread conflict”.
