{"id":27227,"date":"2016-07-26T02:30:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T02:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-sudan-salva-kiir-removes-riek-machar-as\/"},"modified":"2016-07-26T02:30:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T02:30:15","slug":"south-sudan-salva-kiir-removes-riek-machar-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-sudan-salva-kiir-removes-riek-machar-as\/","title":{"rendered":"South Sudan: Salva Kiir removes Riek Machar as deputy leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{South Sudan&#8217;s President Salva Kiir has removed Riek Machar as first vice president, two weeks after the rival leaders&#8217; forces clashed in the capital.}<\/p>\n<p>Mr Machar has not been seen since the clashes, which left 300 people dead and threatened to revive a civil war that has killed tens of thousands.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Machar was replaced by Taban Deng Gai, a former peace negotiator.<\/p>\n<p>The replacement was criticised by Mr Machar&#8217;s supporters &#8211; but others in his party are said to have supported it.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s correspondent in Nairobi, Alastair Leithead, said the move has complicated an already tense political situation.<\/p>\n<p>He said there were fears that Mr Machar&#8217;s supporters might claim that a peace deal with President Kiir had been broken.<\/p>\n<p>This could plunge the country back into civil war &#8211; unless a majority of opposition politicians decided to back the new appointment.<\/p>\n<p>During the clashes in early July, Mr Machar&#8217;s forces were outgunned by forces loyal to the president, and many of his bodyguards were killed.<\/p>\n<p>The rebel leader left the capital, Juba, demanding the deployment of a neutral peacekeeping force that would guarantee his safety.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Machar also sacked Mr Gai as mining minister just over a week ago, according to the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p>However, scores of other members of Mr Machar&#8217;s party came out in support of Mr Gai, nominating him as interim vice president in Mr Machar&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Gai has reportedly said that he would step down if Mr Machar returned to Juba and helped &#8220;bring peace to South Sudan&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011 but its short history has been marred by civil war.<\/p>\n<p>The international community played a major role in the creation of South Sudan and has tried to exercise some influence since independence in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>The UN and US had demanded an immediate end to the fighting in July, a call echoed by the East African regional group which brokered a recent peace deal.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-13789 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90357159_mediaitem90357157.jpg\" alt=\"First Vice-President Riek Machar, left, and President Salva Kiir have been locked in a power struggle\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{South Sudan&#8217;s President Salva Kiir has removed Riek Machar as first vice president, two weeks after the rival leaders&#8217; forces clashed in the capital.} Mr Machar has not been seen since the clashes, which left 300 people dead and threatened to revive a civil war that has killed tens of thousands. Mr Machar was replaced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27227"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27227"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}