Former Prime Minister Odinga is sent by Kenya to help diffuse the South Sudanese issue

Kenya has dispatched former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as a special envoy to South Sudan in an attempt to diffuse a deteriorating conflict between President Salva Kiir and longtime adversary First Vice President Riek Machar that could lead to a return to war.

Kiir and Kenyan President William Ruto, who leads the East African Community bloc, discussed Machar’s incarceration earlier this week. Ruto said he was sending a special envoy to assist defuse the situation and provide an update.

According to Dennis Onyango, Odinga’s spokesperson, the former prime minister would visit Juba on Friday.

“As long as it is in line with de-escalation of the situation,” Machar’s spokeswoman Puok Both Baluang indicated that Odinga’s appointment was a positive move.

On Wednesday night, Machar was placed under house arrest in the city, Juba, according to his party. This effectively nullified a peace agreement from 2018, which put an end to a five-year civil war and placed the two men in a precarious power-sharing arrangement.

National elections and the merging of their two armies into a single army are two important aspects of the peace deal that their administration has been hesitant to implement.

According to a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Machar’s arrest moves South Sudan “one step closer to the edge of collapse into civil war” on Thursday.

Speaking on the phone with Reuters, Baluang stated: “(Machar) is OK, but nothing changes. His home arrest remains in effect.

The latest crisis was caused by an ethnic militia made up primarily of Nuer youths, the White Army, which clashed with the army in the northeastern town of Nasir this month. Machar’s party disputes government charges that it supports the White Army.

The deputy chief of the army and the minister of petroleum were among the prominent Machar associates who were captured by Kiir’s soldiers in reaction to the fighting.

Recent days have seen skirmishes between the two men’s supporters’ groups outside of Juba and elsewhere.

Requests for comment on Machar’s incarceration and Odinga’s appointment were not answered by the South Sudanese government spokeswoman.

Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, who this month dispatched troops to South Sudan at the government’s request to assist safeguard the capital, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, which has previously sponsored peace negotiations with South Sudan, were also contacted, according to Ruto.

According to the African Union, a group of five “highly respected African personalities” known as the “Panel of the Wise” will be sent to help defuse the situation.

By appointing adviser Benjamin Bol Mel as second vice president, enlisting Uganda’s army to secure the capital, and detaining some of Machar’s closest associates, Kiir has been trying to strengthen his position, according to political observers.

According to Justin Lynch, executive director of Conflict Insights Group, “Riek Machar’s attempt to control the White Army serves as a convenient diversion from Juba’s real political crisis—collapsing oil revenues and Salva Kiir’s claims to install Bol Mel as his successor.”