JUBA, MAR 6 (AFP/APP/DNA):South Sudan forces have arrested the oil minister and deputy head of the army, both allies of First Vice-President Riek Machar, as fears grew on Wednesday for the country’s fragile peace agreement.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, ended a five-year civil war in 2018 with a power-sharing agreement between bitter rivals President Salva Kiir and his deputy Machar.

Growing tensions have threatened to undo their unity government, particularly violent clashes in the northeastern Upper Nile State, where the government says there are ongoing clashes between the army and rebels backed by Machar’s forces.

Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters that a government garrison in the region was overrun by the rebels early Tuesday and that fighting was ongoing.

He accused Machar’s movement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), of being in league with the so-called White Army, a loose band of armed youths in the region from the same ethnic Nuer community as the vice-president.

Since the attack, two close allies of Machar, Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol and deputy army chief General Gabriel Duop Lam, have been arrested, according to spokespersons.

Machar’s residence in the capital Juba was also surrounded by army forces on Tuesday although he was present in his office the following day, his spokesman said.

Those troops were not visible around the residence Wednesday evening, an AFP journalist reported.

“At two in the morning, the honourable Puot Kang Chol, several family members and his bodyguards were arrested at his Juba residence,” the minister’s spokesperson, Sirir Gabriel Yiei Ruot, posted on Facebook.

He blasted the development as “without explanation or legal justification.”

The SPLM-IO confirmed the arrest late Wednesday in a statement.

Duop Lam, likewise a high-ranking member of the party, was detained Tuesday.