Riek Machar seeking help for ailing eye

Reports from Isiro in DRC where ousted South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar is under protection indicated yesterday that he is seeking a visa for eye treatment in South Africa.

On Friday, UN helicopters carrying Dr Machar returned to Dungu where he was evacuated from days earlier to take away about 75 soldiers from his army.

UN admitted that peacekeepers in DRC rescued Machar and his wife Angelina Teny from the jungle.

The Standard on Sunday independently established that the ousted VP’s entry into DRC was facilitated by Chad with support from Sudan.

Following the Chadian intervention, the Kinshasa government authorised its military intelligence to extract Machar from Dungu, about 90km from DRC’s border with South Sudan but the planned rescue mission was abandoned for lack of adequate capacity.

Independent reports indicate that the DRC government contacted an official in Monusco known to Machar to arrange an evacuation.

A plan to send an aircraft from Nairobi to Dungu was abandoned on Wednesday. Later that day, UN helicopters from Goma in the East of the DRC lifted the ousted VP and part of his entourage to Isiro, about 200km southwest of Dungu.

On Thursday evening, reports from the DRC alleged that Machar was handed over to Congolese and Sudanese officials at Isiro who flew in from Kinshasa. A transport plane from Khartoum carrying commandos and a top official landed at Isiro airstrip.

Initially, UN officials in Nairobi and the peacekeeping mission in DRC, MONUSCO denied knowledge of the rescue which was exclusively reported by The Standard on Thursday before Machar’s spokesman James Gatdet Dak also admitted the former VP had fled into DRC.

The report indicated that the ousted VP was wounded and stranded at Dungu, after entering DRC around August 12 after Chad intervened on his behalf with the government of President Joseph Kabila.

On Thursday evening the UN disclosed that Monusco evacuated Machar, his wife and ten other people “on humanitarian grounds” on August 17.

“We can confirm that an operation was undertaken by Monusco on humanitarian grounds to facilitate the extraction of Riek Machar, his wife and ten others from a location in the DRC, in support of the DRC authorities,” read the statement in part.

From the UN statement it is not clear how the UN discovered Machar was in DRC but it implies Monusco knew about his arrival in Kinshasa.

“As soon as Monusco was alerted of the presence of Riek Machar in the DRC, the Mission contacted the DRC authorities, who requested Monusco to facilitate his extraction and transfer to their care. Riek Machar has been handed over to the DRC authorities. We are not in a position to confirm his location,” said the UN statement on Thursday.