Riek Machar

…vice president and SPLM rival, Riek Machar. Machar denied the accusation but soon took lead of rebels fighting against Kiir and the SPLM-led government. Fighting quickly took on an ethnic hue when tensions were inflamed between Kiir’s ethnic group, the Dinka, and Machar’s ethnic group, the Nuer, and the conflict…

Riek Machar, who had served as Kiir’s vice president, was not retained. Meanwhile, Machar voiced his ambitions to challenge Kiir for SPLM leadership and to be the party’s presidential candidate in the country’s 2015 elections, as did Pagan Amum, another dismissed cabinet member also seen…

In August 2015 Machar and Kiir, under pressure from the international community—particularly Kiir—signed another peace deal. It called for a permanent cease-fire and the formation of a transitional government and also laid out a fragile power-sharing arrangement. Machar was to return as a vice president in the new…

Eventually, Machar announced that he would return to Juba on April 18, to take up the position of first vice president in the new transitional government. His return, however, was repeatedly delayed because of actions by the South Sudan government as well as the rebels, much…