KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) – Sudan said Tuesday it is hosting South Sudan’s former rebel leader and vice president, whose whereabouts had been unknown after he fled his country into neighboring Congo last week.
Riek Machar needed “urgent medical attention,” government spokesman Ahmed Bilal Osman said in a statement carried by the SUNA news agency. He said Machar’s condition was now stable and that he would stay “until he leaves the country for a destination of his choice to complete his medical treatment.”
Machar fled South Sudan’s capital last month amid renewed fighting, just months after he returned to the country to resume being vice president under a peace deal signed last year under international pressure.
Many of his bodyguards were shot dead in the July fighting that erupted outside the presidential compound where Machar and former rival President Salva Kiir were meeting on recent tensions.
His absence has further weakened the already fragile peace deal, with Kiir quickly replacing Machar as vice president in a contested move.