SECURITY forces in South Sudan have arrested the oil minister and an army general, who are senior members of the main opposition, sparking concerns that the peace deal that ended the civil war may be under threat.
Gen Gabriel Doup Lam and Puot Kang Chol, high-ranking figures of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), are both allies of Vice-President Riek Machar, a rival of President Salva Kiir.
Its military spokesperson Col Lam Gabriel Paul told the BBC that the government had given no reasons for the arrests.
South Sudan is the world’s newest nation, after seceding from Sudan in 2011. But just two years later, a civil war erupted after Machar and Kiir fell out.
After five years, with 400,000 lives lost, and 2.5 million people forced from their homes, a peace deal was agreed in 2018.
But it has been fraught with issues ever since.
Despite the arrests and increasing tension, President Kiir said South Sudan would not go back to war, government spokesperson Michael Makuei told reporters in the capital Juba on Wednesday.
Gen Lam is in charge of the military wing of the opposition party, which is yet to be integrated into the army. He was taken into custody on Tuesday.
Chol was taken by security forces in the middle of the night.
Machar’s house in the capital, Juba, was surrounded by troops from the South Sudanese army overnight before they were later withdrawn.
All other senior military officials allied with Machar have been placed under house arrest, the BBC understands.
