File: Women at Rejaf Training Centre on Tuesday, ‎February ‎11, ‎2020. Woja Emmanuel/Eye Radio.

More than 60 women have delivered inside the Masna-beera military training center, a representative of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) to the peace monitoring body has said.

Major-General David Nyang told the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangement, Monitoring and Verification (CTSAM-VM) that the women are wives of peace soldiers.

He also revealed that 20 peace soldiers died from different illnesses at the Masna-beera in Western Bhar el-ghazel state since last year.

The soldiers are part of the expected unified forces that said to have been assembled and trained across the country as per the revitalized peace agreement.

They died due to limited supplies of medicines, and hard living conditions.

General Nyang, a representative of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance or SSOA to the peace monitoring body CTSAM-VM spoke to Eye Radio on Tuesday after visiting the training center.

“There are so many females that have needs over there and they said the training center actually has 65 deliveries because there are so many pregnant women there,” said Gen. Nyang.

“Masna-beera has 4,881 trainees and 254 instructors.”

In January last year, the army spokesperson said a number of expectant and lactating soldiers were discovered living in harsh conditions at the cantonment sites across the country.

Some of the trainees moved reportedly moved into the training center with their families.

“There are about 22 deaths from different sicknesses. They said the last time they received food was in December last year and the item was only one commodity which is sorghum and about 300 bags and it was not enough. So we found them like there is no food at all. They said they don’t have medicine,” Gen. Nyang explained.

On Tuesday, the defense minister said government and opposition forces undergoing training at various sites across the country will soon be graduated.

Angelina Teny said the National Transitional Committee — a body tasked with overseeing the transitional period has promised to avail all the necessary resources for the graduation by the end of this month.

The revitalized peace agreement requires the cantonment, screening, and training of 83,000 Necessary Unified Forces to safeguard the peace deal.

The accord said unifying the forces will provide security guarantees for the transitional government of national unity, unlike in 2016 when the forces were divided.