FILE PHOTO: South Sudan's President Salva Kiir shakes hands with ex-vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar during their meeting in Juba, South Sudan, October 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
Juba: South Sudan's opposition Sudan People's Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO), led by First Vice President Riek Machar, said Thursday that it would not withdraw from the 2018 revitalized peace deal, despite ongoing disagreements with President Salva Kiir over the dismissal of two senior party officials from the government.
The SPLM-IO protested the president's move to fire Alfred Futuyo Karaba, governor of Western Equatoria State, and Yolanda Awel Deng, minister of health, on Monday, claiming it violated the 2018 revitalized peace agreement.
"We are not pulling out from this agreement, which means a lot to our people and to this country," Lam Paul Gabriel, spokesperson for the SPLA-IO, told journalists in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
Gabriel said they are looking forward to resolving the stalemate through peaceful dialogue with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement under President Kiir.
Gabriel said that SPLA-IO forces, which came under attack by the South Sudan People's Defense Forces (SSPDF) on Wednesday at the Rii-Rangu cantonment site, Western Equatoria State, retain the right to self-defense.
The two sides have been clashing since January 2025 in Western Equatoria, with the fighting killing hundreds of civilians and displacing tens of thousands in Tambura and Nagero counties.
According to Gabriel, the SSPDF has been attacking and dismantling SPLA-IO assembly areas in Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal State since the start of this year on the pretext of dismantling "illegal checkpoints" controlled by the SPLA-IO.
SSPDF spokesperson Lul Ruai Koang earlier accused the SPLA-IO of sparking the renewed fighting in Western Equatoria after they refused the order by the government to vacate what he termed as "illegal checkpoints."
