South Sudanese forces have arrested Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol and several senior military officials allied with First Vice President Riek Machar.
The arrests occurred as soldiers surrounded Machar’s home in the capital, Juba.
Deputy army chief General Gabriel Duop Lam, a loyalist of Machar, was detained on Tuesday, while Chol was arrested on Wednesday along with his bodyguards and family.
No reasons were provided for the arrests, which followed an armed group’s takeover of an army base in the northern Upper Nile state.
Machar, whose political rivalry with President Salva Kiir has previously led to civil war, warned last month that the dismissal of several of his allies from government positions threatened the 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year conflict.
The civil war claimed over 400,000 lives.
Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, spokesperson for Machar’s SPLM-IO party, stated that Lam’s arrest jeopardizes the entire peace agreement.
“This action violates the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan and cripples the Joint Defence Board, a vital institution of the Agreement responsible for the command and control of all forces,” Deng said.
