Off the wire
• Venezuelan government, and Chinese company assess agricultural cooperation  • Roundup: Canadian stock market ekes out marginal gains on upbeat trade data  • 116 Somali refugees return from Kenya with UNHCR help  • More than 1,500 civilians killed in Afghanistan  • UN allocates emergency funding to "all but forgotten crises"  • Interview: China's financial reform plans sufficient to support RMB's inclusion into SDR  • Roundup: U.S. stocks end mixed on mixed data  • Sudan President pardons 101 Egyptian fishermen held for spying  • Germany's benchmark DAX index closes up  • Feature: Egyptians eagerly await opening of "New Suez Canal"  
You are here: 　 Home

Juba prevents opposition delegation from travelling to peace talks in Ethiopia

Xinhua, August 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

A delegation of South Sudanese opposition parties on Wednesday said the Juba government has prevented them from travelling to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to take part in the peace talks between the South Sudanese warring parties.

"We have been doing our travel procedures when a police officer told us that there were directives from the Presidency to prevent the delegation from travelling," Lam Akol, head of the opposition delegation, told reporters at Juba airport Wednesday.

"Such decisions do not serve the peace issue in any way," Akol said, describing the move as "a flagrant violation" of freedom of movement stipulated in the country's constitution as well as international laws.

He further reiterated that the delegation has received a formal invitation from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development in Africa (IGAD), which is mediating between the South Sudanese rivals who are to resume talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Friday.

The South Sudanese opposition parties' alliance brings together about 18 political parties that are not participating in the government.

Earlier IGAD announced a reviewed proposed draft peace agreement to be considered by South Sudan's warring parties, the government led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the South Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition, led by former vice president Riek Machar.

The mediators availed the two sides until Aug. 17 to sign a peace deal to end the violent clash in the newly-born state.

Despite many rounds of talks under IGAD's patronage, the two South Sudanese rivals have failed to reach a peace deal.

South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013 when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes have left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.9 million people to flee their homes. Endit