Michael Mayiel Chuol, a senior diplomat in the South Sudanese Foreign Service, has died in the capital Juba on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Mayiel, who served as South Sudan's ambassador to Ghana from 2014 to 2018, passed on at Freedom International Hospital following a long illness.

“The ambassador had been sick for sometimes and our embassy was closed in Ghana in 2018. So all of them were asked to return to the headquarters. Ambassador Mayil was working here in the headquarters,” Deng Dau Deng, the deputy foreign minister, told Radio Tamazuj Wednesday.

“Yesterday he was admitted to Freedom Hospital and last night he succumbed to the sickness.  We have not yet received the details of the medical report, but we were all were informed of what had happened,” he added.

Deputy Minister Deng Dau expressed his deepest condolences to Mayiel's family, saying the late ambassador served the country selflessly and diligently.

“He was our first ambassador to Ghana. And as you know he was a career politician, but afterward he was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So when the embassy in Ghana was closed, he was redeployed as one of the senior ambassadors in the headquarters,” Deng explained.

Separately, Unity State Governor Joseph Monytuil sent his condolences to the family and friends of the late ambassador.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Governor Monytuil says Mayiel will be remembered as a peacemaker, who contributed to the development of South Sudan during and after the liberation struggle.

Mayiel had served as Unity State Chairperson of High Referendum Committee before South Sudan independence from Sudan.

He was also head of political affairs department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation before his appointment as the first diplomat to represent the country in Accra, Ghana in 2014.