South Sudan Peace “at stake”: Arrest of Official and Blockade of “Machar”’s Headquarters

A surprising development in South Sudan threatens the “fragile” peace agreement after authorities arrested a senior military official and surrounded the vice president’s headquarters, sparking a wave of tensions across the country.

According to a spokesman for Riek Machar, the First Vice President of South Sudan, security forces arrested a senior military official allied with him, while security forces were deployed around his residence, threatening the peace agreement signed in 2018 that ended the civil war.

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Peace officially returned to South Sudan since the 2018 agreement, which ended a five-year conflict between Machar and President Salva Kiir, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. However, violence between rival tribes frequently flares up.

In a statement issued late Tuesday night, Bal Meye Deng, Machar’s spokesman, said that General Paul Malong, head of South Sudan’s defense forces, arrested one of his deputies, Lieutenant General Gabriel Duop Lam, while security forces surrounded Machar‘s residence.

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The statement said, “This action violates the revitalized peace agreement to resolve the conflict in South Sudan and paralyzes the work of the Joint Defense Council, a vital institution for the agreement that oversees all forces. This action jeopardizes the entire agreement.”

He added, “We are also deeply concerned about the massive deployment of South Sudanese Army forces around Machar‘s residence. These actions erode trust between the parties.”

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Deng did not specify the reason for Lam’s arrest.

South Sudan’s military spokesman, Major General Lul Ruai Koang, refrained from commenting on the arrest or the deployment of forces around Machar‘s residence in a statement issued Tuesday evening.

Minister of Information Michael Makuei has not yet responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The civil war, which erupted in December 2013 after Kiir dismissed Machar, claimed an estimated 400,000 lives and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes. Nearly half of the population, estimated at 11 million, is struggling to find enough food. Oil production, a vital source of income for the impoverished country, has also declined.

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