South Sudan monitors urge AU to back release of political detainees

JUBA – South Sudan’s peace monitoring body on Friday urged the African Union to intervene and secure the release of First Vice President Riek Machar and other senior opposition leaders, warning that their continued detention threatens an “irretrievable breakdown” of the country’s fragile ceasefire.

The appeal by the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) comes amid a deepening political crisis triggered by the arrest of Machar and his top military aides on March 26, 2025, a move that shattered the precarious unity government and reignited fighting across six of the country’s ten states.

Maj. Gen. (rtd) George Aggrey Owinow, the Interim Chairperson of R-JMEC, told the African Union Peace and Security Council that the situation has “greatly deteriorated” and that the implementation of the 2018 peace deal has been “severely undermined.”

“This will require addressing the issue of the detained First Vice President and other SPLM/A-IO leaders currently facing prosecution, embracing dialogue, and returning to the full implementation of the R-ARCSS in both letter and spirit,” Owinow said in a briefing on Friday.

The current impasse stems from a rapidly escalating sequence of events that began early last year. Tensions spiked following a deadly attack on a military garrison in Nasir, Upper Nile State, which resulted in the killing of a senior South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) general.

The government in Juba blamed the attack on the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), the former rebel group led by Machar that had integrated into the government.

In a sweeping crackdown following the incident, security forces arrested several high-ranking opposition officials including the SSPDF deputy chief of defense forces who is also the acting chief of staff of the SPLA-IO.

The crisis heightened on March 26 with the arrest of Machar and his wife. The senior opposition officials, seven in total, have since been detained and are in a court proceeding the opposition have dismissed as “sham trial”  by what they say is a “kangaroo court”.

Since the arrests, the ceasefire has effectively collapsed in key regions. Owinow reported that armed clashes between the SSPDF and SPLA-IO have spread to Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity, Western Bahr el Ghazal, and the Equatoria regions.

“According to reports from CTSAMVM, the incidents of armed clashes have occurred in six out of the ten states and three administrative areas,” Owinow noted, referring to the body responsible for monitoring the ceasefire.

The detention of the opposition leadership has paralyzed the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU). With Machar behind bars, the power-sharing arrangements at the heart of the peace deal have unraveled.

Owinow called on the government to “reconstitute itself” by restoring SPLM-IO portfolios that have been left vacant or filled unilaterally since the crackdown. He warned that without immediate corrective action, the country faces a return to full-scale civil war.

“These developments pose a serious threat of an irretrievable breakdown of the Permanent Ceasefire… if urgent steps are not taken to halt the current hostilities and resume dialogue at the highest political level,” he said.

The monitor urged the AU to help facilitate a “meaningful dialogue” that could lead to free and fair elections, originally scheduled to mark the end of the transition but now in doubt due to the renewed violence.