South Sudan debunks reports president is seeking treatment abroad

JUBA – South Sudan government has denied reports that President Salva Kiir Mayardit is seeking treatment abroad and has described information that the president is outside the country due to serious illness as ‘fake and nonsense’ that the public should not succumb to.

This comes after cabinet minister Martin Elia Lomuro said during a meeting with UN diplomats yesterday that the president has traveled to a country which he did not disclose and that the important meeting had to be postponed.

This afternoon, prominent civil society leader Edmund Yakani appealed to the government to disclose the president’s whereabouts amid growing public concerns about the president’s state of health and whereabouts.

Speaking to Sudans Post in an exclusive interview this afternoon, information minister and government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth said the president is in Juba and was chairing the regular cabinet meeting, describing thew alleged president’s illness as fake.

“These are all nonsense and the president has not gone anywhere,” Makuei told Sudans Post.

“As I am talking to you, the president is here chairing the cabinet of minister meeting and if he has gone anywhere, would he have chaired the cabinet meeting?” he asked.

He further added that he “don’t know where this fake information that the president has gone to South Africa comes from.”