Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The U.S. ambassador to South Sudan is calling on the transitional government to speed up the security arrangement and ensure that the country has a single unified army.
Michael J. Adler appeals to the peace parties to resolve the command structure and redeploy thousands of the Necessary Unified Forces who have graduated.
Ambassador Adler said the power struggle between military leaders in Sudan is a testament that South Sudan, like any other country, needs one army.
“We discussed, in particular, the need for the achievement and formation and deployment of the necessary unified forces. As I have said, those who obstruct making progress in this regard are harming the interest of the Sudanese people,” he told state-owned broadcaster SSBC.
Mr. Adler was addressing the media after meeting Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs Tut Gatluak, in Juba.
“This country needs a single military, everybody should understand that given the event of April 15 across the border (with Sudan).”
“Nobody could look into the situation in Sudan today, and not recognize that South Sudan, like any other country, needs a single army.”
On August 6, Information Minister Michael Makuei said the Necessary Unified Forces (NUF] will be deployed after the national legislature approves the 2023/2024 fiscal budget.
Between August and November 2022, the unity government graduated 53,000 as per the 2018 peace agreement security arrangements.
Phase Two of the security arrangement, which calls for cantonment, training, and graduation of the remaining part of the 83,000 forces was supposed to kick off immediately after the end of Phase One.
The unification and redeployment of the forces should have taken place within six-month of the per-transitional period from the signing of the peace agreement in 2018.
But it has since been delayed over the alleged lack of firearms and the arms embargo imposed on the country.
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