Tripartite meeting clears the Way for UN Support to AU in Darfur

The way has been cleared for the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to start providing logistical and human resources support to the African Union Mission in Sudan. UN military staff officers and police advisers deployed as part of the UNMIS Light Support package to AMIS will wear their national uniforms with blue UN berets and an AMIS armband. The uniform to be worn by the UN staff officers and advisers was the final outstanding issue regarding the deployment of UN personnel to Darfur under the Light Support Package of assistance to AMIS.

At today’s third meeting of the Tripartite Mechanism, made up of UNMIS, AMIS, and the Government of Sudan, representatives of the three organizations resolved this one outstanding issue of the deployment of UN personnel in support of AU forces in Darfur.

Under the Light Support Package, UNMIS is to provide 105 military staff officers, 33 police advisers and 48 civilian staff to assist AMIS in Darfur. The United Nations and AMIS teams today provided the Government of Sudan representatives with a list of the names of the forty-three UN military staff officers and twenty-four police advisers who will form the first UN group to be deployed to Darfur in the next few days. The GoS team assured the group that the men can be deployed with immediate effect. The balance of UN military and police officers will be deployed in the coming weeks.

In addition to the personnel which will be provided to AMIS under the Light Support Package, a further US$ 21 million of equipment will also be provided to the African Union peacekeepers. This equipment will include computers, water tankers and public information equipment.

The tripartite mechanism will meet again on 10 January at the AMIS headquarters in Khartoum.