UN intends to back reconstruction process in Sudan, repatriate refugees

KHARTOUM, Nov 15 (AFP) — The United Nations intends to assist post-war reconstruction and the return of Sudanese refugees after a final peace deal is signed to end Sudan’s devastating civil war, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said here Saturday.

UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, who arrived Saturday in Khartoum, told Ismail that the world body was ready to help repatriate refugees, return internally-displaced people to their homes and set up development and reconstruction projects.

For his part, Ismail said that Khartoum wanted the United Nations to take a major role in post-war development and reconstruction.

The UN envoy also held talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and his peace advisor Ghazi Salaheddin Atabani.

Beshir also called on the UN to encourage donors to bankroll projects to rehabilitate refugees and internally-displaced persons, said a statement issued by the cabinet at the end of his meeting with Prendergast.

The country’s civil war erupted in 1983 when the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) took up arms against Khartoum to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Arabised, Muslim north.

More than 1.5 million people have been killed and more than four million people displaced in the conflict.

The government and SPLA have made dramatic progress toward ending the war during the last 15 months of negotiations in Kenya, with the US government expecting a final settlement to be signed by the end of the year.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said Wednesday that his agency was ready to start repatriating some 570,000 registered refugees from Sudan as soon as a peace deal is signed.

Atabani also tols reporters Saturday that he had discussed the necessary and impartial guarantees to implement the final settlement, without specifying the nature of the safeguards.