The President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, dismissed two key ministers responsible for security, violating the terms of the peace agreement with opposition leader and First Vice President Riek Machar. The president's spokesperson, Liri Martin Maniel, stated on Saturday that Kiir removed Defense Minister Angelina Teny, who is Machar's wife, and Interior Minister Mahmoud Solomon in a presidential order announced on state television late Friday evening.
Maniel added, "There is no reason I can announce to you now" for their dismissal, but "this is a normal procedure usually," noting that no decisions have been made yet regarding the identities of the new ministers.
Forces loyal to both Kiir and Machar signed a peace agreement in 2018 that ended five years of civil war, which resulted in the deaths of 400,000 people and triggered the largest refugee crisis in Africa since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
Amid a slowdown in the implementation of the agreement, known as the Revitalized Peace Agreement for South Sudan, the two sides' forces have clashed repeatedly over disputes regarding power-sharing.
In a decree issued the previous Friday, President Kiir assigned control of the Ministry of Defense to his party, despite the agreement's provisions giving Machar's party the authority to appoint the Minister of Defense. In return, the president assigned the Ministry of Interior to Machar's party.
