Former child soldiers of the SSDF Cobra Faction will be trained how to make bread as part of an apprenticeship program supported by the United Nations. The soldiers were recently demobilized in the Pibor area of eastern South Sudan.

In total the number of children demobilized from the Cobra Faction since January is 1,757, according to the United Nations. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has set up an interim care centre in the area where it provides food, shelter and other services.

UNICEF Deputy Country Representative Ettie Higgins said the older children will attend vocational classes to improve their livelihoods.

“For the older boys, we are supporting livelihoods, for example some of the children will benefit from an apprenticeship program with a bakery in Pibor – that is actually starting this week and then they will be able to set up their own small business in the afternoons after their classes in the mornings,” she said in an interview aired on Radio Miraya yesterday.

She added, “We are not supporting them with actual grants; we are supporting them with skills we are also trying to establish other vocational training opportunities such as carpentry, mechanics and electrics.”