United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently condemned the unprovoked murder of five African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur.
In a statement done at UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General said that he "strongly deplores such killings." The peacekeepers, who were attached to the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), were gunned down in an unprovoked attack in Um Baru, roughly 220 kilometers from the North Darfur provincial capital of El Fasher. The SG further used the occasion to justify the need to send a hybrid force of both UN and AU forces to help stabilize the region. He also stressed the continuing need for dialogue and an open transfer of humanitarian access and efforts to end the conflict.
Similarly, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) also released a statement to the media, which said "Any attack against the African Union personnel deployed in Darfur is a serious violation of international law and the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Last week, Mr. Ban met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, AU Chairman Oumar Konare, and League of Arab States Secretary-General Amr Moussa arrived at an agreement to hold a technical consultative briefing, which would be the final step to finalizing the composition and other details of the hybrid force. He also said that he will be sending technical experts from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for this purpose.
Mr. Ban further revealed plans to brief the Security Council on the current situation and to subsequently convene a high-level consultation with Chairman Konare when he visits New York next month. An agreement between the government of Sudan and the UN was also reached, with the former promising to protect and support all humanitarian missions in the region. Relatedly, the UN Human Rights Council has also agreed to deploy a team of independent monitors to oversee the situation on the ground.
Since the conflict began in 2003, more than 200,000 people have been estimated killed, with at least 2 million others more forced to flee their homes due to the massive fighting. The conflict has also since threatened to spill over into neighboring territories Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR). AMIS peacekeepers and humanitarian workers attached to UN agencies and NGOs have conspicuously become high profile targets for attacks in Darfur, where government forces have been battling against Janjaweed militias since the conflict began.
