According to the reports, the first vice president Riek Machar arrested after the armed convoy led by government officials entered his residence in the capital, Juba.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has asked all parties to hold restriction in the middle of the arrest reports of the first vice president Riek Machar, the rival for a long time of the president of the country Salva Kiir.
Umiss Chief Nicholas Haysom said the country risked the “hard profits of the last seven years” if the newest nation in the world returned to “a state of war”, after reports that Machar was arrested in his residence in the capital, Juba.
“Tonight, the country's leaders are on the verge of falling in generalized conflicts or bringing the country to peace, recovery and democracy in the spirit of consensus to which it was reached in 2018 when they signed and promised to implement a revitalized peace agreement,” said Haysom in a statement published early Thursday.
A return to the fight “will not only devastate South Sudan but also affect the entire region,” Haysom added.
According to the Popular Liberation Army of Machar in the opposition party (SPLM/IO), a convoy of 20 strongly armed vehicles “entered strongly” the residence of the first vice president in Juba and disarmed his bodyguards on Wednesday.
The country's defense minister and the head of the National Security were in the convoy who delivered an arrest warrant to the vice president, said the SPLM/IO,
“He was given an arrest warrant under unclear positions,” according to a statement, that Rath Muoch Tang shared on Facebook, president of the Machar Foreign Relations Committee.
“This law is a shameless violation of the Constitution and the revitalized peace agreement, since legal procedures have not been followed such as raising their immunity,” Tang said.
“The arrest of the first vice president without due process undermines the rule of law and threatens the stability of the nation,” he said.
A government spokesman could not be contacted immediately to comment.
Earlier on Wednesday, the UN reported clashes in the last 24 hours between the loyal forces to President Kiir and Vice President Machar outside the Juba capital.
Unravel the peace agreement
A shared power agreement between Kiir and Machar has been falling apart in recent weeks in the midst of tension, since the government's troops loyal to the president have fought against the combatants of the so -called White Army, which has close links with Machar.
In response to the fighting since the end of February in the state of the northeast of Alto Nilo, the Kiir government has arrested several officials of the Machar party, including the Minister of Petroleum and the Deputy Chief of the Army.
Machar's party also said that a military base and two military training centers around Juba had been attacked by government forces since Monday.
The training centers were established to prepare Kiir's opposition forces for integration into the Unified Army, a key provision of the 2018 Peace Agreement destined to unite government and opposition troops.
None of the incidents have been confirmed by the Kiir aligned army, the defense forces of the South Sudan people (SSPDF), although it accused Machar's aggressive maneuvering forces of one of the bases on Monday.
Analysts say that an aged Kiir, 73, has been seeking to guarantee its already Machar succession in the side politically for months through reorganization of the cabinet.
South Sudan, the youngest country in the world, fell into a bloody civil war shortly after gaining independence in 2011, since the forces aligned with Kiir, an ethnic dyka, fought against the loyal ones to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
The conflict killed more than 40,000 people before a 2018 peace agreement saw the couple form a national unity government.
The confrontations and the latest political tensions between Kiir and Machar have disturbed many in Juba.
Norwegian and German embassies have closed, while British and United States embassies said they were reducing minimal personnel and who have urged citizens to leave the country.
