South Sudan Waits for Rebel Chief to Come Back and Bring Peace

South Sudanese rebel chief Riek Machar will arrive in the capital in a move hoped to help end over two years of war.

After a week of delays caused in part by disagreements over the number of troops and weapons he can bring with him, the government on Saturday issued clearance for the man due to become South Sudan's first vice president to fly to Juba on Monday.

Machar, who will arrive from neighboring Ethiopia, can bring with him 195 men carrying AK-47 assault rifles, as well as 20 machine guns and 20 rocket-propelled grenades.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million been driven from their homes in the conflict, which has reignited ethnic divisions and been characterized by gross human rights violations.

Machar, who fled Juba when the war broke out, is due to forge a transitional unity government with arch-rival, Kiir, returning to the post of vice-president he was sacked from months before the violence began.