The Spokesperson for the Sudan People Liberation Army-in-Opposition, Col. Lam Paul, lamented the worsening situation of the unified forces in Leer County, Unity State, saying the officers have run out of food and medicine in the training centre.
“Yes, it is true that the situation of the unified forces in Leer County is perilous, and they are going through a lot. They have run out of food and medicine,” Col. Lam said as he spoke to The City Review on Thursday about the plight of the officers.
“The unified forces in Greater Upper Nile are also going through a lot. The ones in Equatoria and Bahr El Ghazal are at least better,” he added.
He said the government is working on how to provide the necessities for the soldiers, not only in Muom training centre, but also in Upper Nile State.
“The government is in the process of supplying the soldiers with the food not only to the unified forces in Muom even the forces in Upper Nile,” he said.
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Par Tai, Head of Muom training center, was quoted by a local media outlet saying the unified forces have taken seven months without receiving food and medical supplies.
“We have been here for seven months without food and medical supplies. We have not been able to meet our basic needs since we left our cantonment sites to come to this training center. We arrived at Muom Training Center almost three years ago,” he said.
He said after the forces realised that there was no food and medicine, they resorted to fishing in order to survive.
“The forces left cantonment sites in February 2020 to join Muom Training Center. Since we arrived here, we have not had medicine and food for our unified forces. Most of the 4,000 unified forces depend on fishing from the rivers,” he stated.
“After learning that the training center had no food and medicine, the unified forces refused to leave. The soldiers stayed in the training center and depended on fishing and collecting firewood from the forests as a source of their livelihood,” he stressed.
Par revealed that unknown number of soldiers have perished due to lack of food and medicines in the training centre.
“The situation is tough, and an unknown number of people died in the training center because of sickness and hunger. Since we arrived at Muom Training Center, there has been no food or medicines. We are waiting for nothing,” he lamented.
SSPDF spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, confirmed that the shortage of medicine and food supplies extends to the Upper Nile region, encompassing not only Muom Training Center in Unity State.
He gave an assurance that efforts are underway to supply food to the Upper Nile region with logistic teams preparing to distribute food to training centres before the end of the month.
“The logistics team is loading the food destined for all training centers in the Upper Nile region and will depart very soon to these training centers before the end of this month,” Ruai stated, as quoted by the media.
In August 2022, South Sudan graduated its first group of unified armed forces from former rival groups. The formation of unified army is prerequisite of the 2018 peace agreement.
The first batch of the unified forces graduated without firearms, with the transitional government blaming the arms embargo on South Sudan imposed by the United Nations Security Council. They carried wooden guns instead.
According to the peace deal, South Sudan is supposed to train and graduate a unified force of 83,000 personnel to take charge of security during the transitional period.
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