By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
At least ten thousand members of the unified forces that are part of the first batch of 52,000 forces are set to graduate in the Upper Nile region on 21st November 2022.
National Minister of Peace Building, Stephen Par Kuol stated that the Peace partners have scheduled the graduation of 10,000 more necessary unified forces in the Upper Nile State to Monday, 21st November 2022.
He revealed this after his meeting with the Presidential Advisor on National Security Affairs, Tut Gatluak.
Minister Par said the, to be passed out NUF graduates constitute mostly of the police and army, citing that all the necessary preparation to pass them out have been finalized.
The Unity government held the first phase graduation ceremony for the Necessary Unified Forces on 30th August 2022 in Central Equatoria.
In the Equatoria region the first phase graduation saw the 21,973 unified forces that comprised 3,308 VIP protection unit, 4,366 police personnel, 6,315 National security officers and 1,120 prison service personnel.
Further 3,575 personnel would take charge of the National Wildlife Service, and 3,289 to the National Civil Defense services.
Meanwhile, the second Phase graduation was held in the greater Bahr el Ghazal region where over twelve thousand forces were graduated in Wau weeks ago.
The September 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement mandates unity government to train and graduate at least strong 83,000 Necessary Unified Forces drawn from all the various parties of the R-ARCSS to take charge of security during the transitional period and guide the country for democratic election.
However, the Peace government planned to graduate the already trained and screened 52,000 first batch of the unified forces and deploy them before embarking on the enrollment of the second batch of the required 83,000 strong force.