By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, arrived in neighbouring South Sudan on Thursday, marking the highest-level mission to the country since renewed clashes between President Salva Kiir and his longtime rival, First Vice President Riek Machar. The tension has triggered fears of a fresh civil war.
His visit comes after Machar accused Uganda of violating a UN arms embargo by entering South Sudan with armoured and air force units and conducting air strikes.
Museveni was received at the airport by President Kiir, who has accused First Vice President Machar of stoking rebellion.
In his remarks at the airport in the capital, Juba, Museveni did not directly reference the crisis, but Uganda had dispatched its military last month to secure the capital, which Machar says is a violation of the arms embargo.
He told reporters that he would hold talks “aimed at strengthening bilateral relations and enhancing cooperation between our two nations.”
The two leaders would discuss “current political developments in the country,” President Kiir stated.
Museveni’s visit is a follow-up to mediation missions sent by the African Union and an East African regional body this week, seeking to de-escalate the crisis.
A peace pact between Kiir and Machar in 2018 brought a fragile peace that ended a five-year civil war in which about 400,000 people were killed.
The United Nations has warned that the world’s youngest nation could be on the brink of all-out conflict along ethnic lines if the fragile peace collapses.
Uganda had offered support to Kiir’s forces during the civil war and sent troops last month amid fighting between South Sudan’s military and an ethnic Nuer militia in Upper Nile State in the northeast.
Machar’s mostly Nuer forces were allied with the White Army militia during the civil war, but his party denies government accusations of ongoing links.
Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is also Museveni’s son, said on Tuesday that he had ordered Ugandan forces to stop attacking the White Army so that it could cease offensives against Ugandan troops.
South Sudan has not fully implemented key agreements of the 2018 peace deal, including the election of a new president and the drafting of a new constitution.
