Peace soldiers sat down during a parade in recent visit by Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, the deputy chief of JDB|photo|Courtesy.

Unspecified number of peace soldiers in cantonment centers in Upper Nile region have succumbed to minor illnesses amid lack of food and drugs, according to Colonel Lam Paul Gabriel, the spokesperson of the SPLA/IO.

” The situation on the ground is not all that very good. One, due to lack of enough food in the cantonment centres. These people just survive on their own with no medicine.

“Sometimes our forces go without food for months, especially even now that they don’t even have salaries. So, there is hunger and depression on the ground,” he said.

The colonel Lam Pual Gabriel’s statement comes after the Joint Defense Board Deputy Chief, Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam toured four out of eight cantonment sites in Upper Nile state.

According to him, the soldiers are surviving on their own without medicines and food.

Lam added that there are no hospitals or health facilities in the cantonment centres or nearby to help treat the ailing forces.

“We don’t have hospitals or health facilities in the cantonment centres or nearby to help treat our forces. That’s why we have seen several dying of minor sicknesses. So those are some of the challenges that we have,” he added.

Two years ago, the Joint Military Ceasefire Commission established 17 cantonment sites to accommodate the second batch of unified forces from the ranks of the armed opposition forces.

According to the deal, the forces – mainly SPLA-IO and SOA will be registered, screened, and militarily formed before joining the government forces at the training centres.

In the Greater Upper Nile region, there were 5,460 army officers, 3,405 police personnel in Twofogia, 1,765 army personnel in Panyijier, 2,305 police personnel in Muom and in Kaljak 2,747 army personnel.3

This amounted to a total of 15,682 members of the organized forces.

The 2018 revitalized peace deal expects the unity government to graduate 83,000 unified forces drawn from the various parties to take charge of security during the ongoing transitional period.

However, factors such as insufficient funding, lack of political will among the peace parties, arms embargo and allegations of many ranks in the opposition forces are said to be complicating the efforts.