BERLIN (AP) – The German government said on Saturday that it will temporarily close its embassy in South Sudan.
“After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is on the brink of civil war again,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on social media platform Bluesky.
She added that the crisis team of the German Foreign Ministry “resolved to close the embassy in the capital Juba.
Baerbock also wrote that South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his rival Vice President Riek Machar “are falling into a spiral of violence. They have a duty to stop meaningless violence and ultimately implement a peace agreement.”
Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has been plagued by political instability and violence.
In 2018, a peace agreement was signed between Machar and Kiir, ending a five-year civil war, in which 400,000 people were killed. Machar served as the first vice president of the country’s national solidarity government, even though his political groups opposed Kiir.
The political competition between the two is widely seen as a major obstacle to peace in South Sudan, and Kiel doubts the ambitions of his deputy and Machar calls Kiel a dictator.
