UN says it will close eastern Sudan mission

July 7, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The United Nations will close its mission in eastern Sudan now that thousands of former rebels have been moved to the country’s south, the chief U.N. envoy Jan Pronk said Thursday.

In a statement, Pronk said he had told the governor of Kassala province that the U.N. operation would be phased out because its task had been completed.

The U.N. mission oversaw the relocation of about 5,500 guerrillas of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, together with their families and military material. The last guerrillas left Kassala last month.

The redeployment was part of the peace agreement signed in January 2005 that ended a 21-year war between the SPLA and the government of Sudan, Africa’s biggest nation.

Although based in southern Sudan, the SPLA established bases in Kassala state to mount attacks on government forces and the oil pipeline to Port Sudan.

Turning to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, Pronk said the United Nations was keeping watch to see if a Monday attack by Darfur rebels on a town in another part of western Sudan was an isolated incident or the beginning of a bid to expand that area’s conflict.

Sudan’s government condemned the Justice and Equality Movement for attacking Hamarat Sheikh, which is in Kordofan on the road between North Darfur and the national capital, Khartoum. The raiders killed about a dozen people, mostly members of the security forces.

A JEM spokesman said the attack was in retaliation for a security force raid in Darfur.

JEM is one of several factions that refused to sign a May 5 peace agreement that seeks to end three years of fighting in Darfur over land and water. The conflict has caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people and displaced 2 million.

(ST/AP)