Juba (South Sudan), 27 Mar. (LaPresse/AP) – South Sudan's main opposition party said its leader Riek Machar had been arrested, while the UN called on all parties to respect the 2018 agreement that ended the country's civil war. The United Nations warned on Monday that the country was on the brink of a new civil war after fighting in the north between an armed group allied to Machar and government forces. Machar has been ‘confined by the government’ and his life is ‘at risk’, opposition spokesman Pal Mai Deng said on Wednesday evening in a video addressed to the media. The head of the United Nations mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, said that following the news of Machar's detention, all parties should ‘show restraint and uphold the Revitalised Peace Agreement’. The civil war in South Sudan, which lasted five years and cost the lives of 400,000 people, ended in 2018 with a peace agreement that brought President Salva Kiir and Machar together in a unity government. Tensions between Kiir and Machar's parties increased and intensified in February, when the White Army, an armed group loyal to Machar, invaded a military base in Upper Nile State and attacked a United Nations helicopter. The government responded with air strikes, warning all civilians in the area where the military group is based to leave the area or ‘face the consequences’. More than a dozen people have died since the air strikes began in mid-March, and the UN has warned of a new civil war if the leaders do not put the country's interests first.
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