South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar under house arrest – reports

South Sudanese rebel leader, Riek Machar, is currently under ‘house arrest’ in Pretoria, South Africa, sources report.

According to reports, the leader of the split off group SPLA-IO faction that has been in a three-year war with President Salva Kiir’s mainstream SPLA, is being kept in isolation for fear that if he appears in the South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, there may rise a potential genocide.

Over a million people have fled from South Sudan after conflict erupted in the country in 2013 when Kiir fired Machar as his deputy.

According to Reuters, in South Africa, a well-connected regional political consultant said Machar was being held “basically under house arrest” near Pretoria with his movements restricted and his phone calls monitored and controlled.

“If he wants to go to the toilet, he has to hand over his phone and a guy stands outside the cubicle,” the source said.

However Foreign Minister Spokesman Clayson Monyela had denied that Machar is being detained, rather terming him as a ‘guest’ of Pretoria as South Africa trie to prevent the war from sliding into a potential genocide.

Reuters further reports that “the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-country East African group, had asked Pretoria to make sure Machar did not leave. The United States, Britain and Norway had supported that request”.