Two SPLA-IO soldiers died due to poor health at Owiny-Kibul military training center in Torit State on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, a Joint Military Ceasefire Commission (JMCC) official said.

Brig. Gen. Kornelio Abelle Lomilomoi, the JMMC team leader for Eastern Equatoria, told Radio Tamazuj on Friday that the two soldiers were among those from Lowareng cantonment site in Kapoeta State.

He said the training site lacks health facilities. “At Owiny-Kibul training centre, training is going on well, but we lost two soldiers from Lowareng cantonment site who were there for training. I think they were sick,” Abelle said.

The military officer further said some soldiers are not physically fit to complete the training.

The JMCC official pointed out that not enough screening was made to determine the physical fitness of some soldiers due to time factor.

“We have been given orders from the JDB [Joint Defence Board] that those people must move to the training centre without testing and that they would be tested from the place of training,” he explained.

Abelle urged peace partners to quickly intervene in delivering health services to forces at the training sites, adding that his team forwarded the issue to the attention of both the national and state governments.

Lam Paul Gabriel, the SPLA-IO deputy military spokesperson, confirmed that two soldiers died at Owiny-Kibul camp.

According to Lam, the two soldiers died of Kala-azar disease.

In November 2019, the national government allocated $16.5 million for the security mechanisms to speed up the creation of unified forces, a key requirement of the 2018 peace deal.