UN EXTENDS PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN SOUTH SUDAN

UN EXTENDS PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN SOUTH SUDAN

The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan until March 2018, pending a review of its operations. The UN Secretary-General’s most recent report on the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) recommended that the mandate be extended for two months, awaiting the completion of an ongoing strategic review of operations.

In a meeting to discuss the situation of South Sudan on Thursday, the UNSC members unanimously adopted Resolution 2392 of 2017 that also authorized the mission to use all necessary means to carry out its tasks as set out in Resolution 2327 of last year.

The 15-member organ called on the government of South Sudan to live by its commitment to cooperating fully with UNMISS. It further condemned actions against United Nations and humanitarian workers and civilians.

The UNSC emphasized the UNMISS mandate to investigate abuses of human rights and humanitarian law, and reiterated that perpetrators of violations must be held accountable. The current extended mandate will run until 15th March 2018.

Last month, South Sudan’s Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Dr.Martin Elia Lomoro, said the government wants the UNMISS mandate to focus on governance, capacity building and development rather than protection of civilians. South Sudan’s power struggle which denigrated into armed conflict entered its fifth year this month.

UNAMID DRAWS DOWN IN DARFUR

UNITED NATIONS–AFRICAN UNION MISSION IN DARFUR (UNAMID) DRAWS DOWN IN DARFUR

The United Nations will be reducing the presence of peacekeepers in the Darfur region of Sudan, a move which threatens to intensify violence in the region and destroy a fragile peace between the government and opposition groups. On June 29, 2017, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2363 for the gradual drawdown of the United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The resolution, drafted by the United Kingdom, calls for the number of troops and police serving in UNAMID to be cut by at least 30 percent. The drawdown will be gradually carried out in two separate six-month phases. The first drawdown will reduce the number of UNAMID troops from 13,000 to about 11,400 by January 2018, and the second drawdown will reduce troops to 8,735 by the end of June 2018. The number of police will be reduced from 3,150 to 2,888 by January and to 2,500 by June.

UNAMID was established by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1769 in July 2007 as a response to the armed conflict in Darfur between rebel groups and government forces. As many as 300,000 were killed in the conflict while another 2.3 million were forced to flee their homes and were displaced. The U.N. Security Council authorized UNAMID to take all necessary actions to protect civilians and humanitarian operations, prevent armed attacks, and ensure the effective implementation of a peace agreement between the government and rebels. UNAMID’s mandate authorized a force of up to 19,555 military personnel and 3,772 police, with a budget of more than $1 billion. UNAMID is the first joint mission between the African Union and United Nations and it is one of the costliest and largest peacekeeping missions. Since its establishment, UNAMID’s military and police personnel have been instrumental in providing physical protection and facilitating access to humanitarian aid for vulnerable civilian populations in conflict-torn areas.

The recent adoption of Resolution 2363, calling for the drawdown of peacekeeping forces, follows a report submitted by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to the U.N. Security Council on the conflict in Darfur, indicating that there has been a marked decrease in violence due to the Sudanese government’s recent success in suppressing armed movements and curbing intercommunal violence. The drawdown is also part of a U.S. effort to reduce the United Nations’ peacekeeping budget and review peacekeeping missions as their mandates come up for renewal. The United States, which contributes about 28.5 percent of the peacekeeping operations budget, pushed to cut $1 billion from the United Nations’ nearly $8 billion budget for peacekeeping operations. A recent compromise was struck based on a European Union proposal for a $7.3 billion annual peacekeeping budget, which reflects a $600 million cut. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley welcomed the budget cut and stated that they were “only getting started.”

The drawdown of peacekeeping troops and the promise of further budget cuts is worrisome, as they threaten to leave civilian populations in Darfur vulnerable and unprotected. While the conflict in Darfur has largely subsided, there are still reports of fighting between government forces and rebel groups, along with reports of attacks against internally displaced persons. Human Rights Watch’s Senior Director for Africa Advocacy Daniel Bekele said the planned cuts “reflect a false narrative about Darfur’s war ending” and that there was “no reason to believe that government attacks on civilians and other abuses have ended since the same security forces remain in place.” Indeed, in May and June of this year there were reports that government forces had clashed with rebel groups in northern and eastern Darfur and displaced thousands of people. Additionally, a March 2017 report by Secretary General Guterres documented more instances of human rights violations in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016.

Given the fragile security situation in Darfur, the drawdown of peacekeeping forces can and should be reassessed if the Sudanese government fails to protect civilians and humanitarian aid workers in areas where peacekeepers will be withdrawn. Resolution 2363 requests that the U.N. Secretary General and the Chairperson of the African Commission, in consultation with UNAMID, provide a report in January 2018, which reviews implementation of the drawdown, impact on the protection of civilians, impact on the ability of civilians to access humanitarian assistance, cooperation of the Sudanese government with the mission, and “whether conditions on the ground remain conducive to further reductions.” The drawdown should be halted if the report in January reveals that withdrawing peacekeeping troops from insecure areas has exacerbated human rights abuses against civilians in Darfur.

The United Nations has previously drawn down peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Liberia. In the Central African Republic, for example, commentators similarly argued that withdrawing peacekeepers from the country was premature and counterproductive. Since the withdrawal, the security situation in the Central African Republic has been rapidly declining. Hopefully, the same doesn’t occur as a result of the withdrawal of peacekeepers in Darfur.

DARFUR PEACEKEEPING FORCE HEADED FOR MAJOR DRAW-DOWN

DARFUR PEACEKEEPING FORCE HEADED FOR MAJOR DRAW-DOWN.

The African Union and the United Nations are proposing major cuts to their joint peacekeeping force in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, paring down one of the world's largest and costliest peace operations.

A joint report sent to the UN Security Council last month recommends that the ceiling set for military troops be cut by 44 percent and the maximum number of police reduced by 30 percent in the UNAMID force. The Security Council is expected to discuss the proposals next week.

The cuts to the 17,000-strong UNAMID force would result in major savings to the UN peacekeeping budget at a time when the United States is seeking to reduce its financial contribution to the blue helmets.

UNAMID has a budget of $1.04 billion per year, making it one of the UN's costliest missions along with the UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Under the proposal outlined in a strategic review of the UNAMID force, the troop level would drop to 8,735 and the police strength would stand at 2,360. The drawdown would be carried out in two six-month phases.

The report cited an "improvement in the security situation" as a result of the Khartoum government's offensive against rebel groups in Darfur, which are now confined to parts of western Jebel Marra.

Darfur has been engulfed in conflict since 2003, when ethnic minority insurgents mounted a rebellion against President Omar al-Bashir, complaining that his Arab-dominated government was marginalizing the region.

Bashir launched a brutal counter-insurgency, and the United Nations says that at least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.

The UN-AU joint mission "should adjust to the new realities in Darfur and the Sudan," said the report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and African Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat.

The peacekeepers would withdraw from several sectors in Darfur and concentrate the mission's main military effort on Jebel Marra, said the report dated May 18.

Nigerian soldier on peacekeeping mission killed in Darfur

NIGERIAN SOLDIER ON PEACEKEEPING MISSION KILLED IN DARFUR.

A Nigerian peacekeeper serving with the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) has been killed in Darfur, the UNAMID said said on Thursday.

UNAMID, in a statement said the Nigerian soldier was killed by an unidentified group in a carjacking incident in Nyala, South Darfur State.

The Mission extended its condolences to the family of the late peacekeeper and the Government of Nigeria.

“UNAMID strongly condemns this attack, which constitutes a violation of international law.

“The incident has been reported to the relevant Sudanese authorities. “UNAMID calls on the Government of Sudan to swiftly apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

“The Mission extends its deepest condolences to the family of the late peacekeeper, his colleagues, and the Federal Government of Nigeria.”

The United Nations at a press briefing by Mr Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General, confirmed the death and extended its condolences to the family, colleagues and the Federal Government.

“We join the Mission in extending our deepest condolences to the family of the late peacekeeper, his colleagues, and the Federal Government of Nigeria”, Dujarric said.

British troops join UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan

BRITISH TROOPS JOIN UN PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN SOUTH SUDAN

May 2, 2017 (JUBA) – The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said about 400 United Kingdom troops arrived to serve as peacekeepers.

"British troops, proudly wearing their distinctive blue UN berets arrived in Juba today to join the United Nations Mission in South Sudan," UNMISS said in a statement that was released late on Tuesday.

According to UNMISS, the UK contingent will provide a Military Engineering Taskforce to the Malakal and Bentiu Protection of Civilians Sites (POCs), as well as a Level II Hospital in Bentiu.

Also, British troops will also conduct construction to improve the accommodation, security and drainage in the areas, along with the construction of a jetty on the Nile River and a helicopter landing site.

"Alongside their UNMISS colleague, their efforts will make a contribution to protecting civilians and creating conditions to enable the delivery of humanitarian aids," the UNMISS added.

With almost 400 troops in total, this will be one of the UK’s largest operational deployments across the world.

In addition to the UNMISS troops, 4,000 Regional Protection Force members approved by the UN Security Council last year began arriving in Juba this week to pacify the main city and provide security to vital infrastructure and routes leading out of Juba.

There are about 12,000 peacekeepers serving in UNMISS, protecting more than 200,000 civilians in six POCs. The civilians fled violence from government troops at the onset of conflict in December 2013.

China to send 700 troops to South Sudan to assist U.N. mission

CHINA TO SEND 700 TROOPS TO SOUTH SUDAN TO ASSIST U.N. MISSION

(Reuters) - China said on Thursday it will send 700 troops to join a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, where fighting has threatened Beijing's oil investments.

The troops will assist the U.N. with protecting citizens and humanitarian workers and in other security-related activities in the newly independent country, said Defence Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng in a statement.

The location of the troops and the timing of the deployment were still being negotiated, the statement said.

U.N. officials have previously said it would be the first time China had contributed a battalion to a U.N. peacekeeping mission. Last year China sent a smaller "protection unit" to join a U.N. mission in Mali.

China has more than 1,800 peacekeepers in Africa, China's Foreign Ministry said earlier this month.

China has played an unusually active diplomatic role in South Sudan.

About five percent of China's oil imports came from South Sudan when it was pumping at full tilt. The state firm China National Petroleum Corp. has a 40 percent stake in a joint venture developing the fields.

The nine-month-old rebellion in South Sudan threatens Beijing's oil investments. Chinese officials have worked with Western diplomats to help regional African mediators push for a halt to the fighting.

(The story is corrected to fix spelling of Defence Ministry spokesman in paragraph 2.)

Rebels attack town in eastern DR Congo, UN reports

(Peacekeepers serving with the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) on patrol. UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti)

REBELS ATTACK TOWN IN EASTERN DR CONGO, UNITED NATIONS REPORTS

14 January 2014 – The United Nations today reported a new rebel attack in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the region continues to suffer from deadly violence even after the defeat of a major dissident group, the M23, over a month ago.

In the latest violence, Mayi Mayi Sheka fighters attacked Pinga, in North Kivu province, but left after a 30-minute gun fight with the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUSCO) reported.

Around 1,000 civilians sought refuge during the confrontation near the UN Mission’s base in Pinga, but only 90 remained there today, the others having returned home.

Briefing the Security Council yesterday by video link from Kinshasa, the DRC capital, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Mary Robinson, warned that the positive atmosphere that prevailed last month following the defeat of the M23 rebel group has “vanished” and the region is going through a period of renewed turbulence.

This has been marked by deadly attacks in eastern DRC by another rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the ongoing crisis in Central African Republic (CAR) and the eruption of fighting in South Sudan.

The Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region, signed by 11 nations last February, remains “the best chance” to achieve sustainable peace, security, cooperation and development in the Great Lakes Region, she said.

In the same briefing Mr. Ban’s Special Representative for DRC Martin Kobler called the Framework a major milestone, along with the creation of an intervention brigade within MONUSCO and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, which put all armed groups on notice that “we have the will and the means to take robust action at any time.

“In the coming weeks, we will finalize the review of our military deployment across eastern Congo. We will then have a more flexible force. We need it to be more agile, ready to deploy when it is needed and where civilians are threatened, to take on the threat,” he added, also noting that peace in eastern DRC can only be durable if its root causes are addressed.

“Restitution of State authority alone is not enough. Only regional cooperation and good governance will provide the peace dividend the population is expecting.”

Today he strongly condemned the latest attack and sent his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and the Congolese people, stressing that MONUSCO will continue to work to consolidate the recent military gains.

The DRC has been torn apart by civil wars and factional fighting since it became independent from Belgium in 1960, but with the support of a series of UN missions a measure of stability has been restored to much of the vast country over the past decade.

But fighting between the Government and a variety of rebel and sectarian groups has continued to devastate the eastern regions, particularly North and South Kivu provinces.

In March, the Security Council authorized the deployment of an intervention brigade within MONUSCO, based in North Kivu province with a total of 3,069 peacekeepers, to carry out targeted offensive operations, with or without FARDC, against armed groups threatening peace in eastern DRC.

Reprisal Attacks Target CAR Muslims

REPRISAL ATTACKS TARGET CAR MUSLIMS

CAIRO – Reporting mass-killing in the Central African Republic, the United Nations has accused French “peacekeepers” of leaving unarmed Muslim families to face death at the hands of Christian militias in the war-torn country. "They were obviously trying to disarm armed men, which was a good thing,” UN human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, was quoted by IB Times on Wednesday, January 15. “There were anti-balaka elements or even civilians who took advantage of that to attack and kill people who had been disarmed, or their dependents.It wasn't foreseen but I believe the tactics have changed.”

Releasing the first findings of the UN investigation, based on 183 interviews, the UN human rights team revealed the conflict in Central African Republic has caused more than 1,000 deaths. Deployed to cripple the ongoing fighting in CAR, the French peacekeeping forces have disarmed the ex-Seleka rebels, allowing Christian militias to retaliate from the disarmed Muslim community.

Going from door to door, anti-balaka Christian militias have raided Muslim homes killing children and women and looting and vandalizing properties. The French troops have been accused of turning deaf ears to atrocities against Muslims, watching Muslims killed in cold blood. Although the clashes appear to have diminished, killings and human rights violations are still carried out with impunity.

Along with killing, kidnapping, torture and arbitrary arrest and detention, in the war-torn CAR, a UN investigation found evidences of sexual violence. A case of cannibalism has been reported too when a video showed a Christian man chewing the flesh of a Muslim driver killed in Christian mob. "Muslim! Muslim! Muslim. I stabbed him in the head. I poured petrol on him. I burned him. Then I ate his leg, the whole thing right down to the bone - with bread. That's why people call me Mad-dog," Mad Dog, whose real name is Ouandja Magloire, told the BBC. Reacting to the horrible video, the UN warned of an “extraordinarily vicious levels" of bigotry.

"Extremely Volatile"

Senior UN envoy John Ging has warned against the possibility of further violence as the country is still in a "mega-crisis".

"Everything has been lost," Ging told the BBC.

"Homes have been destroyed, facilities, schools and medical centres completely ransacked and destroyed [along with] water wells."

Ging added that more than a million people have fled their home in CAR. "And with that displacement, of course, you have all the humanitarian needs: shelter, food, medical care and so on," he said.

"Our great fear is that it will deteriorate and spiral out of control. Although for a million people it's already out of control." Similar fears were expressed by NGO International Medical Corps spokesman Josh Harris. "The most common conditions among refugees are malaria (39%), acute respiratory infections (20%) and diarrhoeal disease (18%)," Harris told IBTimes UK.

Former CAR president Michel Djotodia resigned after he faced pressure to step down, being considered by many unable to halt the bloodshed.  Djotodia, CAR's first Muslim leader, became president after a coup d'état staged by the Muslim Seleka group last March.  The UN warned that the CAR conflict could end in genocide and some 2.2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Amnesty International called for international intervention as crimes against humanity including extrajudicial executions and mutilations of bodies are being committed throughout the country. Discussing the ongoing violence in CAR, UN Human Rights Council is expected to hold an emergency session next Monday, January 21 in a bid to offer solutions to the conflict.  The country of nearly five million people is mostly Christian, with about 15 percent Muslims who are concentrated in the north.

United Nations lost 58 peacekeepers in 2013

UNITED NATIONS LOST 58 PEACEKEEPERS IN 2013

New York, US - The UN lost 58 military, police and civilian peacekeepers last year, who were working to bring peace and stability to parts of the world, a report of UN staff union has said.

PANA in New York on Friday reports that the Staff Union said working for the United Nations had became more dangerous last year, with at least 58 personnel targeted by terrorists and insurgents.

It noted that the highest number of casualties occurred in attacks targeting the UN in South Sudan, Somalia and Sudan's Darfur region.

It said 33 peacekeepers and 25 civilians and associated personnel were killed in 2013 while working for the organisation, stating that the number represented an increase in the death toll from attacks on UN staff members compared with the previous year, when 37 UN personnel were killed.

The union cited the horrific assaults on the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which resulted in the killing of 12 people during an ambush on 9 April 2013 in Jonglei State, South Sudan.

The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in New York said about 30 peacekeepers were escorting a civilian convoy when they were ambushed by some 200 armed, unidentified men near the settlement of Gumuruk.

The firefight that followed killed five Indian peacekeepers, two national staff and five contractors.

The report also said overall, 16 peacekeepers were killed in Darfur, seven in South Sudan, four in Mali and four in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In addition, it said, five civilian staff members, four of them working for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), were killed in Syria.

The Staff Union’s overview comes just months after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed to UN member states and host governments to support all measures of safety and security measures to improve the operational environment for UN personnel and humanitarian workers.

Ban stated: 'United Nations personnel serve in an increasingly dangerous environment and encounter a variety of threats not previously encountered in the history of the organisation.'

He cited a UN report released last year, which said: 'Safety and security of humanitarian personnel and protection of United Nations workers showed that significant security incidents affecting UN staff in 2012 increased to 1,793 compared with 1,759 in 2011.'

The report also stated that violent acts were cited as the primary cause of death or injuries during 2012, with 20 of the 35 deaths attributed to this, while 15 staffers were killed in safety-related incidents.