Telar Ring Deng
Telar Ring Deng (28 December 1957 – 27 December 2020) was a South Sudanese politician and statesman. Telar died from COVID-19 related-complications on December 27, 2020, two days after announcing that he tested positive for COVID-19. At the time of his death Ambassador Telar was nominated to the Revitalized Transitional National Assembly by SPLM-IO, and was primed as the Minority Leader. This was after his appointment as minister was rejected. It is understood that President Kiir retracted his earlier position of allocating Lakes state to SPLM-IO after it became apparent to him that Dr. Riek had nominated Ambassador Telar for governorship. Telar was an Atout Dinka, hailing from Yirol. When the SPLA split, Telar sided with SPLA-Nasir. Together with Deng Ayuen Kurr, Telar was the most prominent Dinka leader in SPLA-Nasir. Telar and Deng accompanied Lam Akol during his two-month stay in Western Europe. However Telar and Deng left SPLA-Nasir after the Frankfurt talks, disappointed that separation had not been mentioned in the documents of the peace talks and the rapprochement between SPLA-Nasir and the Khartoum government. Telar and Deng returned to the mainstream faction of the SPLA/SPLM. Telar also represented the New Sudan Council of Churches for a period.