Ex-S.Sudan VP Machar ‘safe’ in DR Congo

The former rebel and former South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar, driven from the capital in July by heavy fighting recently left South Sudan and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, have we learned corroborating sources. An earlier statement from Machar’s SPLM-IO party said the leader had been “evacuated to a safe country within the region”, without naming the DRC.

The capital Juba was hit with violence in July, where over 140 rival militias died and experts fear that the world’s newest nation will fall back into civil war unless both sides look to work on strengthening a peace deal from August 2015.

The United Nations Security Council voted this month to send 4,000 additional peacekeepers to South Sudan in recognition of the deteriorating situation, but so far peacekeepers have been able to do little to prevent the country from sliding backwards towards war.

Ateny Wek Ateny, presidential spokesman, said the government will accept the force, but only if it can negotiate its size, mandate, weapons and the contributing countries.

South Sudan’s rebel leader Riek Machar speaks during an interview with Reuters in Kenya’s capital Nairobi July 8, 2015.

South Sudanese government which had been on the offensive, trying to hunt him down in the bush where he had been hiding said on Friday that it was not aware of Machar’s whereabouts.

Gender-based violence is also on the up UNICEF warned, a worrying trend in a country where violations were already rife. Hundreds died in clashes in July.

The United Nations secretary-general is launching an independent investigation into allegations that UN peacekeepers did not respond to prevent multiple cases of abuse and sexual violence against civilians and foreigners in South Sudan’s capital.

Machar had returned to South Sudan in April in a major step toward realizing a peace deal reached in August 2015 under intense global pressure. After he fled, Machar was replaced as first vice president, a post he held for just a few months under the fragile peace deal.

According to estimates, some 16,000 children have been recruited by the armed groups and armed forces since the crisis first began in the country in December 2013. The peace deal has been violated repeatedly by fighting.

This AFP file photo taken on February 10, 2015 shows child soldiers sit with their rifles at a ceremony for their disarmament in South Sudan overseen by UNICEF.