South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has appointed Angelina Teny, the recently sacked defence minister, as the new minister of the interior.
Ms Teny is the wife of opposition leader Riek Machar, who is the country’s vice-president in a unity government formed after 2018 to end the country’s brutal six-year civil war.
Her dismissal earlier this year sparked an opposition outcry and threatened to destroy the fragile peace deal between the president and his rival Mr Machar.
Under the terms of that agreement the defence ministry should be allocated to someone from Mr Machar’s SPLM-IO party.
The SPLM-IO has not yet commented on Ms Teny’s reappointment to cabinet, announced on Tuesday night in a presidential decree read out on the national broadcaster.
The peace deal is intended to lead to the country’s first election since seceding from Sudan 12 years ago. The polls are scheduled for December 2024.