South Sudan’s warring leaders agree to share power, again

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — South Sudan’s warring leaders have agreed to share power once again in a transitional government in the latest effort to end a five-year civil war, officials announced Wednesday.

South Sudan’s information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, announced the agreement between President Salva Kiir and armed opposition leader Riek Machar to reporters in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

The agreement will be signed on Aug. 5, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Al-Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed said. There was no immediate comment from the armed opposition. Kiir will lead South Sudan’s government during the transitional period and Machar will return as first vice-president.

A similar arrangement, however, fell apart in July 2016 when fighting erupted in the capital, Juba, and Machar fled the country on foot.

The civil war broke out in 2013 between supporters of Kiir and his then-deputy Machar. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since then, with more than 2 million fleeing the country in Africa’s largest refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Millions of others have been left near famine.

Multiple ceasefires, including a “permanent” one signed by Kiir and Machar weeks ago, have been violated within hours. Meanwhile, both sides have been accused of abuses. A UN report earlier this month described how government troops and allied forces hung people from trees, burned others alive and raped or gang-raped dozens of women and girls.