The Juba home of South Sudan’s first vice-president Riek Machar has been surrounded by soldiers on Wednesday amid reports that an armed group loyal to him had invaded and occupied an army base.
Sources told APA that a number of Machar loyalists have been rounded up in connection to the attack on a military barracks in the north of the country.
Among those detained since Tuesday are Deputy army chief Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, with alleged links to the attack and Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol who was arrested on Wednesday.
Chol’s bodyguards and two members of his family are also being detained, according to sources who say no reason was given for the string of arrests.
Machar’s SPLM-IO party remains silent over the latest turn of events in South Sudan.
Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, who also doubles as the party spokesperson has warned that the arrest of the deputy army chief could ”wreck the peace” in South Sudan which twice postponed elections originally scheduled for 2015 but later deferred to 2024 due to the precarious political situation and lack of funds.
Polls are being rescheduled for December 2026 in the East African nation of 11.48 million which has never held elections since independence almost 14 years ago.
There has been no report on whether Machar is at his home, which is rendered off-limit by government troops surrounding the premises in the South Sudanese capital which appears to be calm.
Machar has been President Salva Kiir’s standout political rival since the world’s newest country attained independence from the rest of Sudan in July 2011.
Their rivalry had been blamed for the country’s descent into full scale civil war in December 2013 after Machar was accused of orchestrating an abortive coup against President Kiir.
Their political love-lust which had never cooled since 2013, has been deteriorating in recent weeks.
The heavy presence of soldiers around Machar’s home followed last month’s warning that the mass dismissal of his proteges from the South Sudanese government could trigger a return to full blown civil conflict.
The 72-year-old Bradford University trained engineer had warned that removing his allies would scupper the gains of the 2018 peace deal which ended a five-year civil war.
Some 400, 000 people had died and over 2 million more displaced in the conflict.