South Sudan’s army said it had recaptured a key town in Upper Nile state that it lost to an ethnic Nuer militia in March in\u00a0clashes\u00a0which led to the arrest of First Vice President Riek Machar and a spiralling political crisis.<\/p>\n
President Salva Kiir has served in an uneasy power-sharing government with Machar since a 2018 peace deal ended a civil war between fighters loyal to the two men which killed hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n
Machar’s detention under\u00a0house arrest, for trying to stir up a rebellion through his supposed support for the White Army militia in Upper Nile, has ignited international fears of renewed conflict along ethnic lines.<\/p>\n
Spokespeople for the military and White Army, which Machar’s party denies backing, said Nasir town was re-captured on Sunday without a fight.<\/p>\n
“We were just taking a tactical withdrawal,” said Honson Chuol James, White Army spokesperson, adding that 17 people were killed during heavy bombardment of the nearby village of Thuluc.<\/p>\n
Army spokesperson Lul Ruai Koang said the military were able to avoid an ambush in Thuluc thanks to close air support.<\/p>\n
“They were spotted when they were grouping, and they were fired on, and then they dispersed,” Koang said.<\/p>\n
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni\u00a0visited Kiir\u00a0earlier this month after deploying his army to help secure South Sudan’s capital Juba amid the heightened political tensions.<\/p>\n
Uganda’s military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is also Museveni’s son, claims his troops have since killed 1,500 fighters from the White Army, which fought alongside Machar’s forces in the civil war.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month Machar’s SPLM-IO party appeared to be starting to\u00a0splinter. One faction declared it had temporarily replaced Machar as party chairman, while the armed wing said it remained loyal to their detained leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Sudan’s army said it had recaptured a key town in Upper Nile state that it lost to an ethnic Nuer militia in March in\u00a0clashes\u00a0which led to the arrest of First Vice President Riek Machar and a spiralling political crisis. President Salva Kiir has served in an uneasy power-sharing government with Machar since a 2018 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,33,1129],"tags":[116,3859,3983],"class_list":["post-16069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","tag-south-sudan","tag-upper-nile-state","tag-white-army-militia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}