The much anticipated return of South Sudan’s rebel leader Riek Machar to the capital, Juba, has been postponed to tomorrow for what a spokesperson describes as logistical reasons.
According to Juba-based Eye Radio, Machar was due to take up the post of first vice-president, a key part of the peace process aimed at ending more than two years of civil war.
Billboards have been erected heralding the return of Machar to take up the post of vice-president – the same job he was sacked from months before the conflict erupted – and forge a unity government with arch-rival Kiir.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in a war marked by numerous atrocities, with more than two million forced from their homes and nearly six million in need of emergency food aid.
The conflict broke out in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused Machar of planning a coup, claims he denied, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that divided the desperately poor country along ethnic lines.
