NAIROBI (Reuters) – Uganda has deployed special forces in South Sudan’s capital Juba to “secure it”, Uganda’s military chief said on Tuesday, but South Sudan’s information minister denied the presence of troops, as tensions between South Sudan’s president and first vice president stoke fears of a return to war.
A Ugandan military spokesperson said the deployment was at the request of the South Sudan government.
Tensions have risen in recent days in South Sudan, an oil producer, since President Salva Kiir’s government detained two ministers and several senior military officials allied with First Vice President Riek Machar.
One minister has since been released.
The arrests in Juba and deadly clashes around the northern town of Nasir are widely seen as jeopardising a 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar in which nearly 400,000 people were killed.
“As of 2 days ago, our Special Forces units entered Juba to secure it,” Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, said in a series of posts on the X platform overnight into Tuesday.
“We the UPDF (Ugandan military), only recognise one President of South Sudan, H.E. Salva Kiir … any move against him is a declaration of war against Uganda,” he said.
Felix Kulayigye, the spokesperson for the Ugandan military, said the troops were there with permission from the South Sudan government.
“Yes we did (deploy them) and they are there on the invitation of government of South Sudan. The situation will determine how long we’ll stay there,” he said.
He declined to give details of troop numbers.
South Sudan government information minister Michael Makuei told Eye Radio station that the reports of the deployment were untrue. He did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Puok Both Baluang, spokesperson for Machar, said he hoped the troop deployment would not serve to escalate the situation.
He told Reuters that eight officials arrested last week alongside the petroleum minister had been released but that 20 others, including the minister and the deputy head of military, were still in custody.
After the civil war erupted in South Sudan in 2013, Uganda deployed its troops in Juba to bolster Kiir’s forces against Machar. They were eventually withdrawn in 2015.
Ugandan troops were again deployed in Juba in 2016 after fighting reignited between the two sides but they were also withdrawn.
Uganda fears a full-blown conflagration in its northern neighbour could send waves of refugees across the border and potentially create instability.
(Writing by Nairobi Newsroom; Editing by George Obulutsa, Alex Winning, Timothy Heritage and Ed Osmond)
