NEW YORK, 19 December: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Tuesday announced that the former General Assembly president and Swedish foreign minister Jan Eliasson has been appointed as a special envoy to deal with the spiralling humanitarian and security crisis in Sudans war-torn Darfur region.
Mr. Annan said that he and Secretary-General-designate Ban Ki-moon had agreed to ask Mr. Eliasson – who served as Assembly president during its 60th session in 2005-06 – to serve in the new post.
– I expect him to assume his activities on Sudan at the beginning of the year, Mr. Annan said.
The Secretary-General said Mr. Eliassons main task would be to “the work the diplomatic channels,” especially outside Sudan, to encourage governments in their home capitals to remain engaged on the issue.
A new Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Sudan will be designated shortly to replace Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, he added.
Monday Mr. Annan and Mr. Ban met representatives of the Security Councils five permanent members to discuss the deteriorating situation inside Darfur, a remote and impoverished region in western Sudan that has been beset by fighting since 2003.
More than 200.000 people have been killed and 2 million others displaced from their homes since clashes first erupted between Government forces, allied militias and rebel groups seeking greater autonomy. The UN estimates that 4 million people now depend on humanitarian assistance.
Wednesday another UN special envoy, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, will start his diplomatic mission in Khartoum, holding talks with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir to clarify details of recent agreements on ending the fighting in Darfur, including on the role of the UN.
Mr. Ould-Abdallah and Mr. el-Bashir will discuss the deal reached at last months High-Level meeting on Darfur, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the UN, the African Union (AU) and Sudan agreed that the UN would provide extra support to the current AU peacekeeping mission – known as AMIS – as part of a three-phase process culminating in AMIS becoming a hybrid UN-AU mission.
The hybrid force is expected to have about 17.000 troops and 3.000 police officers, compared to the current AMIS strength of around 7.000.
Under the first phase of enhanced UN support, the UN is giving AMIS a 21 million US dollar “light support package,” which includes the provision of some equipment as well as 105 military advisers, 33 police officers and 48 civilian staff from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) – a separate peacekeeping operation mandated to oversee a peace pact that ended the 21-year war in the countrys south.
Endorsing the agreements reached at Addis Ababa and Abuja, the Security Council Tuesday called for the conclusions to be implemented immediately, especially the deployment of the UN light support package.
The 15-member body reiterated its grave concern about the situation inside Darfur and its repercussions for the wider region.
The UN annual work plan for Sudan, launched last week in Geneva, forecasts that the troubled huge African country needs more than 1,8 billion dollar next year to fund humanitarian and development projects, with the conflict in Darfur and reconstruction efforts in southern Sudan absorbing most of the costs.
In Southern Sudan the UN is monitoring implementation of a peace agreement that ended over two decades of bloody conflict there.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
