May 6, 2020 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s Joint Defense Board (JDB) has announced that it is graduating the Necessary Unified Forces (NUF) being trained currently at different training centres across the country in a positive step in the implementation of the security arrangements.
The NUFs, according to the revitalized peace agreement signed in September 2018, is supposed to be in place by the end of the pre-transitional period which ended in February with the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU).
At the time, the forces could not however be in place because trainings couldn’t be complete owing to several factors such as the lack of political will needed for that action and lack of sufficient funds as soldiers have been reported at some point to have died of hunger.
In a statement this afternoon, Col. Lam Paul Gabriel who is the SPLA-IO deputy spokesman and a press secretary at the South Sudan’s defense ministry said the decision to graduate the NUFs was reached by the Joint Defense Board (JDB) during a meeting at Bilpam, the army headquarters in Juba, today.
“The JDB today 06/05/2020, in its 12th ordinary meeting, resolves to graduate the Necessary Unified Forces (NUF) currently in the training centers, within the period of one month beginning tomorrow the 7/05/2020,” Lam said.
“Instructors are directed to prepare these forces for graduation as soon as possible,” he added pointing out that the National Transitional Committee (NTC) “will be requested to preposition emergency food to the training centers and also the cantonment sites.”
He further concluded that “Forces in the centers are directed to continue to maintain social distancing to support the fight against the COVID-19.”
