Three hundred South Sudanese soldiers left Juba this morning for a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The troops are additional forces to the previous 750 sent to Congo by President Kiir last year as part of the East Africa Community Regional Forces.
The regional troops’ mandate is to end the long conflict in the Eastern part of DRC and protect civilians from the insurgent.
These battalions are the mixtures of the different forces from all the regular units of the security forces in the country.
They will join their counterparts from Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi to restore peace in the Eastern Congo who fully joined the bloc last year.
Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs, Chol Thon Balok says the troops will be deployed in Goma for a specific period and change yearly and allowed new ones to join.
Chol says the soldiers are well-trained, and oriented and will meet the satisfaction of everyone.
“In my mind, I do not doubt at all that our men and women in Uniform will perform well in that mission, I trust them, they are well trained, they are well oriented and they will do it to the satisfaction of everybody,” Gen. Chol stated.
The Chief of Defense Forces for South Sudan People’s Defense Forces, Gen. Santino Deng Wol has called the soldiers to protect the image of the country and promote duties diligently.
Gen. Deng tells the peacekeepers to put the safety of civilians first and treat them like their own South Sudanese.
“We are going to Congo, and we want to Unite our soldiers, soldiers of the East Africa Community to be strong soldiers who will be able to defend our civilians of EAC, and I would like to tell you that you are going.”
“I want to tell you that you are going to represent South Sudan and the importance of your going is to defend our civilians in Congo and you should treat them like our civilians in South Sudan,” he said
Jok believes that with the joint forces of the East Africa Community, the people of Congo will have total peace.
The old woman you are going to meet there should be like the old woman from South Sudan, the young lady you will meet there should be like the lady from South Sudan, “He adds.”
In August last year, South Sudan Cabinet approved 6.69 million U.S. dollars to deploy troops in the Eastern D.R. Congo to avert the insurgencies by M23 Rebels in the region.