JUBA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- South Sudans President Salva Kiir on Friday pledged to involve the military to revamp the agriculture sector and eradicate food and nutrition crisis in the country. We must end for once the annual threat of famine and hunger in South Sudan and give the World Food Program (WFP) and organizations alike a break. We must begin to take responsibility for feeding our people from our land, Kiir said in a statement issued in Juba. He made the remarks ahead of the 37th anniversary when the ruling Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) launched war of resistance on March 16th, 1983. We have no excuse to allow the world to feed our people indefinitely. The time has come now to end this and to use our military for peacetime purposes such as food production and road construction, said Kiir. Kiir said the ability of South Sudan to achieve food security depends on ending all forms of violence in the country. Enough is enough, the peace we must pursue at all costs and to silence all the guns as this is the demand of our people, the order of the African Union and the world, said Kiir. Kiir appealed to civilian population to adhere to precautionary measures being observed worldwide on prevention of COVID-19, which had killed one person and infected 231 people in South Sudan. While the threat of hunger looms large, what is more threatening now is the fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic. As a government, we acted quickly to warn our people and impose travel restrictions both internally and externally to prevent coronavirus from entering South Sudan, said Kiir. Unfortunately, despite all these efforts, the enemy is here, and it is spreading at an alarming rate, doubling nearly every five days. This disease is a dangerous killer, and we should not ignore it, he added. South Sudans former warring parties formed the transitional unity government and are currently in discussion over sharing power in the states.
