Riek Machar, South Sudan’s first vice president, has been charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity.
The charges stem from his alleged involvement in attacks by a militia against federal forces in March, the justice minister announced on Thursday.
South Sudan’s government claims the White Army, a loose band of armed youths, attacked a military base in Nasir, northeastern South Sudan, and killed more than 250 soldiers on Machar’s orders.
Seven others, including the former minister of petroleum, were charged alongside Machar on Thursday following investigations into a suspected rebellion plot.
“These crimes were marked by gross violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, including the desecration of corpses, persecution of civilians and attacks on humanitarian workers,” Justice Minister Joseph Geng Akech said, according to AFP.
Machar and President Salva Kiir have long been rivals.
Civil war broke out in oil-producing South Sudan in 2013 — less than two years after the country gained independence from Sudan following decades of war — after Kiir sacked Machar as vice president, accusing him of plotting a coup.
The conflict killed an estimated 400,000 people directly and indirectly, and forced roughly four million — one-third of the population — from their homes before a 2018 peace deal saw the pair form a government of national unity.
That power-sharing deal began unravelling earlier this year, when, in response to fighting since late February in the northeastern Upper Nile state, Kiir’s government detained several officials from Machar’s party, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army.
