By Taban Henry
The South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF’s) spokesperson said only a company of about a hundred soldiers of the unified forces from the units of the police, army, prison, civil defense, wildlife and national security, will be sent to Juba to symbolize the graduation of the first batch of the unified forces.
Earlier this month, the government finally announced 30th August as the date for the graduation of the long awaited Necessary Unified Forces, after several promises to graduate the peace soldiers passed without fulfillment.
At last 52,102 of the unified forces comprising the army, police, wildlife, prison, civil defense and the National Security forces have been screened and streamlined waiting for graduation on August 30, 2022.
The recruits are from 17 training centers from the greater Bahr-el Ghazal, greater Equatoria and the greater Upper Nile regions respectively.
According to the National Transitional Committee, about 26,508 forces that’s a mixture of the army, national security and the police will come from the nine training centers in Greater Equatoria region, 15,682 from five centers in Greater Upper Nile and 9,812 from three centers in Greater Bahr el Ghazal.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper yesterday, the SSPDF spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang revealed that the unified forces graduation slotted for 30th of August will have only a company of selected soldiers among the trainee to symbolize their graduation in Juba.
He said only a squadron of the necessary unified forces from all the units will be brought from each of the various training centers to come and symbolize the graduation of the over 52,000 unified forces.
“We shall be taking representatives from each unit for instances the VIP at Gorom, it is projected that one company will be taken from the VIP unit, one company from the police, National Security, Wildlife and the prison service. They will be brought at Dr. John Garang Mausoleum to symbolize the graduation of the necessary unified forces in training sectors around Juba,” he said.
Gen. Lul added that the graduation will be witnessed by the President citing that the other training sites’ representatives will be sent to come and preside over the graduation across the Country.
He said there are about seventeen training centers from across the country,
“Of course for it to be done for example representatives will be sent to all the training centers to come and participate in the graduation. The company of around a hundred men.
“We are busy distributing food in greater Equatoria as well as uniforms and the verification team will be sent on the ground to verify the team of all those forces who will be graduated,” Lul stated.