South Sudan marked the 43rd anniversary of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) — the armed movement whose 1983 founding triggered a decades-long independence struggle — with a ceremony at the national stadium in Juba on Saturday, the first such public commemoration since a 2013 civil war erupted between rival factions. President Salva Kiir honoured fallen fighters and the army chief pledged to maintain security, even as fresh clashes between government forces and troops loyal to Kiir's detained rival, former First Vice-President Riek Machar, have raised fears of a return to full-scale conflict. The celebration underscores the fragility of the 2018 peace deal that ended the civil war, with the unity government it created increasingly unravelling and Machar now facing charges of murder, treason, and crimes against humanity — accusations his party has dismissed as a political witch-hunt.