The South Sudanese rebel group SPLM/A-Nasir has dismissed speculation that some of its leaders were arrested by Ethiopian authorities in the country’s western region of Gambela.
Social media has been awash with reports that South Sudan’s ex-minister for wildlife conservation and tourism, Gabriel Changson Chang and Makuach Teny, the former youth and sports minister, were arrested last week by the regional government in Gambela. The reports alleged that both were put in prison in Gambela city for allegedly trying to deliver fuel to the rebels. Both men are members of the rebel group led by former vice-president, Riek Machar.
Machar’s spokesperson, James Gatdet Dak, dismissed the story as a “concocted lie.”
Dak told Sudan Tribune on Saturday: “Gabriel Changson is one of the leading members of our delegation at the peace talks in Addis Ababa. He was warmly welcomed in Gambela town by the regional authorities. He is free. Meanwhile Makuach Teny is in one of our bases in Upper Nile state.
“Besides that, we don’t receive logistics from Ethiopia, but we get it from surrendering and defecting SPLA soldiers”, he said, adding that the two leaders were also not the ones handling logistics for the fighters.
Dak speculated that the story was fabricated to divert the public attention from what happened in Gambela city on 9 April when a South Sudanese army (SPLA) soldier was gunned down.
