UGANDA’S military chief said Tuesday his country had deployed special forces in South Sudan’s capital Juba to “secure it” as tensions between President Salva Kiir and his First Vice President Riek Machar stoke fears of a return to civil war.
Tensions have been growing in recent days in South Sudan, an oil producer after Kiir’s government detained two ministers and several senior military officials allied with Machar. One minister has since been released.
The arrests in Juba and deadly clashes around the northern town of Nasir are seen as jeopardizing the 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar that cost nearly 400,000 lives.
“As of two days ago, our Special Forces units entered Juba to secure it,” Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, said in a series of posts on the X platform overnight into Tuesday.
“We, the UPDF (Ugandan military), only recognize one President of South Sudan, H.E. Salva Kiir … any move against him is a declaration of war against Uganda,” he said in another post.
South Sudan government information minister and the military spokesperson did not pick up phone calls seeking comment.
•Reuters
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