Khartoum, Sudan
January 10, 2022 — South Sudan’s opposition commander, who is also the leader of the breakaway SPLM/A-IO Kitgwang faction, has returned to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum following an invitation extended to him by IGAD.
In a statement seen by Nyamilepedia, James Kalany Mamuon, the Press Secretary in the office Gen. Gatwech Dual says the invitation came as part of regional efforts to table talks between President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s government and senior opposition commander’s faction in an endeavor to contain the ongoing clashes in northern Upper Nile state.
“The office of the Press Secretary, would like to inform the entire movement that, the Chairman and the Commander in Chief, of SPLM/A (IO) 1st Lt Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual, accompanied by some senior officers within the SPLA (IO) rank and file, arrived to Khartoum this morning from Magenis/Kitgwang on the invitation of the IGAD (Sudan) to attend face to face meeting with the delegation of Government of South Sudan in Khartoum,” Gen. Gatwech’s press secretary James Kalany Mamuon said in a statement obtained by Nyamilepedia.
Mamuon said, the upcoming peace negotiation between President Kiir’s government and their faction is expected to discuss “the prospect of peace, the recent fighting in Magenis, and to explore avenues to preventing any future escalation of violence in future at the border of Sudan.”
The regional body (IGAD)’s call for talks comes few days after forces led by General Simon Gatwech and those loyal to South Sudan’s First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny resumed fighting in northern Upper Nile’s Magenis.
On 4th of August last year, Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual made an unilateral declaration in which he claimed to have overthrown Dr. Riek Machar Teny as Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLM/A-IO.
Dr. Machar termed Gen. Gatwech’s declaration as null and void and responded to it by sacking him as SPLA-IO Chief of General Staff.
Machar and Gatwech have been allies since 1990s but their current feuds are feared to demonstrate a deep crackdown in Machar’s leadership.
