South Sudan plunged into war in 2013 after a political disagreement between Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar deteriorated into a military confrontation.on Thursday pardoned dozens of prisoners including a prominent economist jailed for giving interviews to foreign media, saying it was a goodwill gesture to rejuvenate the country’s stalled peace process.
Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal in 2018 under pressure from the United Nations, United States and other countries in the region to end the country’s grinding civil war and agreed to form a unity government by November 12 last year. The failed deadline prompted Washington to recall its ambassador and diminished prospects of an end to Africa’s worst refugee crisis since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
Ajak fled to the United States as a youth, was educated at Harvard and Cambridge and worked at the World Bank. He also worked as South Sudan country director for the International Growth Centre, part of the London School of Economics.