South Sudan’s First Vice President Dr Riek Machar has been charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in attacks by an ethnic militia against federal forces in March.
This was announced yesterday evening by the South Sudan Minister for Justice Joseph Geng and hours later, President Salva Kiir suspended Dr Machar from his post, but no more details were given.
The charges against Dr Machar and his suspension escalate a feud between the country’s two main political camps one led by President Kiir and anothed led by Dr Machar which faced off in a 2013-2018 civil war in which an estimated 400,000 people died.
President also suspended the Minister for Petroleum Puot Kang Chol, who was charged alongside Dr Machar who has been under house arrest since March in connection with attacks by the White Army militia in the northeastern town of Nasir.
International powers and Organisations have repeatedly called for Dr Machar’s release, warning his detention could lead the country back into civil war and besides Dr Machar, 20 other people were indicted in the case and 13 of those are at large.
The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a South Sudan activist group, Edmund Yakani said in statement that he hoped the court trying Machar and the seven others would be fair and competent, not a kangaroo court of law.
Civil war broke out in oil-producing South Sudan in 2013 just less than two years after the country gained independence from Sudan following decades of war when President Salva Kiir first sacked Dr Machar as Vice president, accusing him of plotting a coup.
The conflict killed an estimated 400,000 people directly and indirectly and forced roughly 4 million which is almost one-third of the population from their homes before a 2018 peace deal saw the pair form a government of national unity.
That power-sharing deal began unravelling earlier this year, when, in response to fighting since late February in the Northeastern Upper Nile state, President Kiir’s government detained several officials from Dr Machar’s party, including the Petroleum minister and the Deputy Head of the Army.
