South Sudan army on Tuesday said preparations are underway to train a protection unit that would be tasked to handle the security of top officials during the transitional government.

"The preparations are underway to select and train the VIP protection unit. The preparations are expected to be finalised in the next two weeks," Lul Ruai Koang, the army spokesman told Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday.

“The training of the protection force for members of the presidency is our priority, because the other forces will be deployed to the other areas,” he said.

Lul pointed out that the training of unified forces is expected to be completed before for the formation of a new unity government on 12 November.

For his part, the SPLA-IO deputy spokesman, Paul Lam Gabriel said their soldiers in the presidential unit would be selected soon. “It is a process because all the forces need to be screened and registered first. The VIP protection unit is supposed to wait a bit until the registration of the forces is completed,” Lam said.

“The registration process is ongoing and it has already started with our forces in Western Bahr al Ghazal,” he added.

Lam pointed out that the parties to the peace agreement agreed to form a 3,000-strong VIP protection unit. He added that the VIP protection unit would be drawn from the SSPDF, the SPLA-IO and soldiers from the opposition alliance. “The opposition would select 1,500 soldiers and the government would select 1, 500 soldiers,” he explained.

Lam expressed hope that the creation of a unified force will be completed before November 12. The opposition officer admitted that many cantonment sites lack clean drinking water.

Two weeks ago, the parties to the peace deal resolved that at least 50% of the 83,000 necessary unified forces should be trained and deployed before the end of September.