Riek Machar flees S Sudan, 'in care' of DRC authorities

Machar led a two-year rebellion against forces loyal to his longtime rival President Salva Kiir

UN spokesman says Machar is in the care of authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo after fleeing South Sudan.

South Sudan's former vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar "is in the care" of the authorities in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations has said, several weeks after he withdrew from the capital Juba during fierce fighting with government troops.

The news on Thursday came after a statement by the leadership of the SPLA In Opposition party said Machar had left South Sudan on Wednesday to a "safe country within the region", without giving any further details on his exact whereabouts.


"We were aware yesterday of the presence of Riek Machar in DRC," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said on Thursday. "At that point the UN Mission contacted the authorities in the DRC who in turn requested MONUSCO [UN's mission in the DRC] to facilitate his extraction and his transfer to the care of the DRC.

"We have undergone an extraction operation and so he is currently in the care of the authorities in the DRC."
A DRC government spokesman, however, told Al Jazeera later on Thursday that they had not been officially informed of Machar's presence in the country.

"They said they are aware that he is in one of the border areas of DRC but they have no official information of Machar being under their care, which is contradictory to the statement of the UN," Al Jazeera's Hiba Morgan, reporting from Juba, said.

Earlier on Thursday, a Machar aide told the AFP news agency that the former vice president was in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, and wanted "to go as soon as possible to Ethiopia"