Ex-S.Sudan VP Machar 'safe' In DR Congo

Ex-S.Sudan VP Machar 'safe' in DR Congo

NAIROBI, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th August, 2016) - South Sudan's former rebel leader and ex-vice president Riek Machar has escaped to the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo following violent clashes last month, an official said Thursday. "Riek Machar is currently in DRC, in Kinshasa, and wants to go as soon as possible to Ethiopia," an aide told AFP.

An earlier statement from Machar's SPLM-IO party said the leader had been "evacuated to a safe country within the region" without naming Congo. Civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused Machar, then his deputy, of plotting a coup.

The fighting has split the world's newest country along ethnic lines and driven it to the brink of collapse.