Addis Ababa, August 2, 2016 (FBC) – An influential South Sudanese minister and opposition figure has resigned, saying a fragile peace deal was dead and calling for President Salva Kiir's unity government to leave power.
Lam Akol, agriculture minister in Kiir's administration and the leader of the opposition Sudan People's Liberation Movement-Democratic Change (SPLM-DC) party, spoke out on Monday against rebel leader Riek Machar, whose forces have clashed in recent weeks with government troops loyal to the president.
Machar, who has also been vice president, was Kiir's only real opponent in a 2010 election when the young country was still a semi-autonomous territory.
"There is no more peace agreement to implement in Juba," Akol said at a press conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
"The only sensible way to oppose this regime, so as to restore genuine peace to our war-torn country, is to organize outside Juba."
After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into civil war in December 2013.
Source: Aljazeera