According to sources allied to opposition leader and Vice President Riek Machar, eight members of the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) party were released by Kiir’s government, but 20 others, including Oil Minister Puot Kang and Deputy Chief of Army Staff Gabriel Doup Lam, remain in detention.
Recent changes of opposition figures in the governance of Upper Nile state, stipulated in the 2018 Peace accords and decided by President Salva Kiir, created an outbreak of violence in the town of Nasir, from which the current wave of arrests was unleashed.
In South Sudan, after several years of civil war, the warring political leaders signed a peace agreement in 2018 and in August 2022 agreed to extend the transition period that was due to expire in February 2025 with elections scheduled for December this year, after several delays.
This northeast African country has only 13 years of independence, after separating from its northern neighbor, Sudan, on July 9, 2011.
The self-determination achieved after a historic referendum made it a sovereign state, but also precipitated its political division, which exhibited a deep ethnic rivalry that may resurface at the ballot box in the future.
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