South Sudan envoy dismisses rumour on Riek Machar killing

South Sudan has dismissed rumours that opposition leader Riek Machar had been killed.

Reacting to the social media rumour, South Sudan’s Ambassador to Kenya Jimmy Deng Makuach dismissed the information as propaganda by Machar’s supporters.

“The South Sudan’s government has no intention to kill Machar. If it wanted to kill him, it could have done so during the chaos that rocked the country recently. It is government’s troops that escorted Machar to his residence when violence broke out,” said Mr Makuach while addressing media at the embassy.

Machar, who was first vice president, has not been seen since the clashes, which left 300 people dead and threatened to revive a civil war that has killed tens of thousands.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir sacked Machar and appointed Gen Taban Deng Gai to replace him.

General Gai was former chief negotiator of SPLM/SPLA-IO and minister of mining in the transitional government. He was sworn in on Tuesday.

The ambassador ruled out the possibility of the government giving Machar his job if he returns to Juba.

“He will have to renegotiate for another position in SPLM/SPLA–IO. It is his organisation that met and gave us his successor’s name. But that position won’t be of vice president,” Makuach said.

The diplomat maintained that Kiir’s government is keen to implement the peace agreement signed last year.

War crimes

And a new report by Amnesty International has revealed the horrors suffered by civilians at the hands of government forces after the August 2015 peace agreement was signed. The report details how South Sudanese government forces and allied militia hunted down and killed civilians, raped and abducted women, stole cattle and torched villages in opposition strongholds in Leer County, Unity State, between August and December 2015.

Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty International Lama Fakih said the war crimes and other abuses committed across the country were as a result of ongoing impunity that continues to fuel conflict in South Sudan, as seen in recent weeks of renewed fighting.

According to the report, all witnesses and survivors interviewed said the soldiers who attacked them were wearing army uniform. One woman said: “The uniform was the one for Salva Kiir.” Nyangun (not her real name) is one of the women who survived the attack on Adok Payam in November 2015.

“They came at night. I ran with my relatives and children to the swamp. One man who was a trader died behind us. He was shot in the back,” she told Amnesty International.