28 April 2015 – The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for South Sudan and head of the UN Mission in South Sudan, Ellen Margrethe Loej, led a 20-person delegation to Pibor Town today to meet recently released former child soldiers and receive briefings on the security and humanitarian situation in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA).

UNICEF has been supporting a programme to secure the release of hundreds of child soldiers once associated with the Cobra Faction of the South Sudan Democratic Movement/Army (SSDM/A) in various parts of the GPAA, which was created last year under a peace agreement reached by the government of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and David Yau Yau, the former head of the militia’s Cobra Faction.

Last Friday another 283 ex-child soldiers were released in the GPAA community of Labrab, bringing to 1,757 the number of minors who have been demobilized by Yau Yau’s former militia thus far this year.

“I really commend you for implementing the agreement to release the child soldiers,” SRSG Loej told Mr. Yau Yau, the chief administrator of the GPAA, during an hour-long meeting at his Pibor Town office. “I really hope that the Greater Pibor area will be an example to be followed by all the armed forces in South Sudan because children do not deserve to grow up with guns in their hands.”

UNICEF estimates that over 13,000 South Sudanese children are fighting for or associated with armed forces and groups nationwide.

Mr. Yau Yau welcomed the SRSG’s visit and pledged his government’s support for the campaign to end the recruitment of children into armed groups.

“We’ve made much effort to make sure they are demobilized,” he said. “These children will be reconciled with their families after two to three months, and if we still have some capacity to help them we can (address) their basic needs in terms of education.”

Following the meeting, Ms. Loej met two former child soldiers who are working in a local bakery as apprentices.
She later visited an interim care center supported by UNICEF and the international non-governmental organization Veterinarians Without Borders to ease the ex-child soldiers’ adjustment to civilian life.

Among the boys she met was a 16-year-old named James who had never attended school when he was brought into the ranks of the SSDM/A Cobra Faction. He was reunited with his parents after he was recently demobilized.

“I need to learn and be in school,” he told the SRSG, adding that he has been unable to begin his studies because of a shortage of educational facilities in Pibor Town.

“We will try to get some teachers to Pibor and try to teach you some skills,” Ms. Loej told James. “Then you can earn some money for your family.”

Ms. Loej and Mr. Yau Yau inaugurated a recently built culvert to improve drainage of flood waters from the Pibor River during the rainy season, which is expected to begin in the area within a matter of weeks.