KHARTOUM, Sudan — South Sudan’s former rebel leader and vice president who fled the country last week has re-emerged in neighboring Sudan, which announced Tuesday that he had needed “urgent medical attention.”
Riek Machar’s whereabouts had been largely unknown for weeks, leaving an already fragile peace deal in limbo.
Machar’s condition is now stable, and he will stay “until he leaves the country for a destination of his choice to complete his medical treatment,” Sudan government spokesman Ahmed Bilal Osman said in a statement carried by the Sudan News Agency.
Machar fled South Sudan’s capital last month amid renewed fighting, just months after he returned to the country to resume being vice president under a peace deal signed last year under international pressure to end a civil war.
Many of his bodyguards were shot dead in the July fighting that erupted outside the presidential compound where Machar and former rival President Salva Kiir were meeting on recent tensions.
His absence further weakened the peace deal, with Kiir quickly named a successor to Machar as vice president in a contested move.
A spokesman for Machar, James Gatdet Gak, confirmed via social media that Machar was in Khartoum and suffered from “exhaustion and a swollen leg,” and he thanked the Sudanese government for the medical care.