ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The world's youngest nation, South Sudan, could be on the brink of another civil war, according to the United Nations. At the heart of the tension is a power struggle between the country's president and vice president. Both leaders signed a peace agreement in 2018 to end that conflict, but many fear it could erupt again, as NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: A fragile peace was barely holding in South Sudan and then came the trigger.
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UNIDENTIFIED FIGHTERS: (Shouting in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: In this footage broadcast by a local media channel, fighters from a loosely organized armed group called the White Army celebrated early last month after they attacked a military base and a U.N. helicopter trying to rescue soldiers there.
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UNIDENTIFIED FIGHTERS: (Singing in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: The White Army is linked to Vice President Riek Machar, a longtime rival of President Salva Kiir. The militants were angry that the government deployed soldiers to Nasir County, their region in the east. A U.N. staff member and over 25 South Sudanese soldiers were killed. The attack provoked a swift response from the government.
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DAVID JOHN KUMURI: Undeniably, the National Security Service has arrested and detained several individuals.
AKINWOTU: Within days, the national security spokesperson David John Kumuri said the vice president and other government ministers had been put under house arrest, accused of being complicit in the attack. Last week, Machar was issued a formal arrest warrant.
Neighboring Uganda's military deployed to South Sudan to support the army, who've responded with heavy force. Scores of people have been killed in Nasir County, including civilians, according to local civil groups. The clashes between the government and the White Army have ignited volatile ethnic tensions with other armed groups, including on the outskirts of the capital, Juba.
MADUT JOK: The current situation is extremely worrying.
AKINWOTU: Madut Jok is a professor at Syracuse University, specializing in security, governance and democracy.
JOK: It threatens plunging the country back into another civil war.
AKINWOTU: He said the seeds of the crisis were sown in the failures of the 2018 peace and power-sharing deal between Kiir, Machar and other parties. President Kiir has been accused by the opposition of attempting to change the power-sharing agreement in his favor, but it has stoked tensions again between Kiir's dominant Dinka ethnic group and Machar's Nuer ethnicity. Compounding all of this, the country's oil revenues have been hit hard by the civil war in Sudan, the country it gained independence from in 2011.
JOK: This country has not seen rest, and it will probably not see rest so long as the current leadership remains locked into these violent confrontations over power and resources.
AKINWOTU: And so a country in perpetual tension is again on a knife edge. Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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