In February, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir abruptly dismissed two of the nation’s 5 vice presidents, and the next month, Vice President Riek Machar—Kiir’s longtime rival—was detained and positioned below home arrest, the place he has remained since then.
The developments in Juba bear troubling similarities to the political dynamics that precipitated the nation’s civil struggle from 2013 to 2018. Mixed with renewed navy confrontations between the nation’s navy and numerous armed teams, they recommend that the delicate peace established in 2018 could also be unraveling.
Whereas battle just isn’t inevitable, the convergence of acquainted patterns—together with the erosion of power-sharing preparations, navy fragmentation and succession dynamics—has considerably elevated the danger of renewed violence.
