IGAD ‘unlikely’ to discuss Machar’s prison status during Sunday summit – official  

JUBA – A South Sudan foreign ministry official has said that it is less likely for the regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to discuss the detention of First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, during its summit expected to kick off on Sunday in Djibouti, saying only the Tigray crisis was high on agenda.

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.

Speaking to Sudans Post during this morning from Djibouti, a senior government official accompanying VP Garang said the summit is occupied by the Tigray crisis as well as the coronavirus pandemic and is less likely to discuss Machar.

“Since the agenda was deliberate before we came from Juba when we were invited, there is no any issue in relation to Dr. Riek. What we have seen is that the discuss is almost all about the crisis in Ethiopia and the coronavirus pandemic and there is nothing related to Riek,” the official said on condition of anonymity.