Western countries push for release of South Sudan leader

The embassies of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the US, as well as the Delegation of the European Union, have renewed pressure on the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, to release his First Vice-President, Riek Machar. According to Chimp Reports, the diplomatic missions said in a joint statement that the security situation in South Sudan has deteriorated to the wartime times of 2018. For a meaningful political dialogue to take shape, the missions said, political prisoners should first be set free. ‘We reaffirm the urgent call for President Kiir to reverse the house arrest of First Vice-President Machar and for all party leaders to return to dialogue urgently aimed at achieving a political solution,’ added the statement. They denounced a recent statement made by South Sudan’s Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro classifying counties in the Nuer tribal area as hostile and friendly. The diplomatic missions also reaffirmed their call on all party leaders to end the use of violence as a tool for political competition and to desist from further unilateral actions. In a related development, the US Ambassador to South Sudan, Michael Adler, said peace can not be fully realised while named parties to the peace agreement remain detained.

Meanwhile, at least seven people have been killed after a hospital and market were bombed in South Sudan, a medical charity has said, as fears grow of a return to civil war, reports BBC News. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said helicopter gunships dropped a bomb on the pharmacy of the hospital it runs in Old Fangak, Jonglei state, burning it down, before firing on the town for 30 minutes. A drone then bombed a local market, MSF said. The hospital is the only one in Fangak county, which has a population of more than 110 000 people, MSF said, and all its medical supplies were destroyed. The charity called the attack, which left 20 people injured, a ‘clear violation of international humanitarian law'. MSF spokesman Mamman Mustaphasa said the charity was still trying to establish the facts, but local witnesses had said the aircraft were ‘government forces helicopters’. 'The hospital is clearly marked as “hospital” with our logo,’ he said. ‘We have shared also our co-ordinates for all the warring parties in the area so the hospital should be known to both parties as a hospital.’ There was no immediate comment from South Sudan's Government.

Full ChimpReports article

Full BBC News report