S. Sudan: Top soldier dies after brief cancer battle

By Parach Mach

JUBA, South Sudan (AA) - South Sudan’s chief of military staff, Gen. James Ajongo, passed away in Cairo on Friday in a military hospital after a brief battle with cancer, the South Sudanese government said.

"It is with a heavy heart that I announce the untimely death of General Ajongo Mawut, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army Chief of Defense Forces," President Salva Kiir said in a statement.

"Ajongo was a remarkable man who was a committed founding member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army. He served his nation with dedication and honor and shall be remembered as a hero."

Kiir said the government has declared three days of national mourning to honor the veteran commander and ordered that the South Sudanese flag be flown at half-mast.

Gen. Ajongo was promoted as the head of the South Sudanese military forces in May 2017, replacing Paul Malong who Kiir had sacked and placed under house arrest in capital Juba before he fled to Kenya.

Malong earlier this month said he was forming his own rebel group, South Sudan United Front to "arrest the carnage" of South Sudan's ongoing civil war.

In a statement on April 10, the former ally of Kiir accused the president of plundering the country "with reckless impunity".