Members of the VIP Protection Unit at Rajaf Police Training Center on April 26, 2019 | Joakino Francis/Eye Radio

Instructors at Rajaf unified police training center say two trainees have died and at least 200 report others to a military clinic there daily due to poor living conditions.

Rajaf training center currently accommodates about 7,000 government and opposition forces that were brought from various states as part of the training and unification of the forces.

The two soldiers reportedly died from poor hygiene and lack of enough medicines at a health facility for the soldiers.

Lack of enough food and clean drinking water is also a major challenge, the trainers say.

“Soldiers use the same plates and cups here. Some people wait for plates from their colleagues. When they finish, another person would come and use them because they are not enough,” said Brig.-Gen. Yasir Leone, chief instructor at Rajaf Unified Police Training Center.

Besides, Brig.-Gen. Leone said, soldiers ease themselves in the open due to lack of pit latrines, making it easy for diseases to spread.

“We don’t have washrooms and the water is not clean and also there are no latrines and diseases have emerged,” he said during a visit by the representatives of R-JMEC and ceasefire monitors to the center.

“For almost a week now, we have been asking for medicines but we have not got them. These people need help.”

In October 2019, three senior SPLA-IO officers in Ngiri cantonment site in Amadi State reportedly died due to lack of medicines and general poor living conditions there.

The NPTC often says it has received tens of millions of US dollars. However, little is known about how the money is spent after the Kiir administration ignored calls to have NPTC account for the funding.