BREAKING: IGAD claims it is not behind Machar’s detention in Juba

IGAD headquarters in Djibouti [Photo by East Africa Business Week]

JUBA – The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has denied in a communique this afternoon that it is behind the detention of First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar, saying there are no any restrictions against Machar from the regional bloc.

Machar, an influential figure in South Sudan’s politics and leader of the SPLM-IO, has been under a regional detention, described by the SPLM-IO as illegal, since late 2016 following the collapse of the 2015 peace deal after a fighting between a handful bodyguards of Machar and a huge force belonging to President Salva Kiir Mayardit in July 2015.

IGAD, the regional bloc that mediated the revitalized peace agreement, had hoped that Machar’s detention, which initially began from South Africa, Khartoum and now Juba, would help end the war that has killed at least half a million people and displaced millions of the world’s youngest country’s citizens to neighboring countries and to internal camps.

However, the detention has in many ways failed to achieve its objective and the civil war continued leading for a brief freedom for Machar in 2018 in which he negotiated the revitalized peace agreement that warranted Machar’s return to Juba – once again – as First Vice President.

While in Juba, the SPLM-IO has kept calling for Machar’s release, but the regional body has – on the other hand – kept referring the case from each summit to  another since then and the calls for Machar’s release have grown, especially following his return to Juba to take up his previous job as First Vice President.

“[The IGAD]Underscored that currently there are no travel restrictions of any kind imposed by IGAD on the First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar Teny,” IGAD said in the communique, without saying who was detaining him.