Darfur welcomes the arrival of UN mission
Dec 29, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur welcomed the arrival of a UN mission of military and police experts and pledged to foster cooperation between it and the African Union troops charged with peacekeeping.
A delegation of 34 UN experts led by the deputy UN representative in Sudan Manuel Da Silva arrived on Thursday in Al-Fasher, North Darfur’s Acting Governor Idriss Abdallah Hassan said.
“I told them that they are welcome and will find every possible means for cooperation,” Hassan said. “They will not be barred from reaching any place where civilians are in need of food, clothing and shelter.”
The delegation held a meeting late Thursday with North Darfur government and Security Committee and discussed the tasks the experts would do in support of the African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS) that operates in Darfur.
Hassan added that his government would cooperate with the UN and AU for protecting the civilians and achieving peace and stability in the region.
The 34 experts who have already arrived in the North Darfur capital are part of 183 military, police and civilian experts whose arrival is to be completed by mid-January, representing the first phase of the UN support to AMIS.
In a letter to UN chief Kofi Annan released Tuesday, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir stated his government’s readiness “to start immediately” with implementation of the Darfur peace plan.
The three-phase plan was agreed at a high-level meeting in Ethiopia last November and at a November 30 meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council in Abuja, Nigeria.
Beshir, who had until now steadfastly rejected any large-scale UN troop deployment in Darfur, endorsed the plan which includes the deployment of the “hybrid” AU-UN peacekeeping force.
The United States had given Khartoum until January 1 to accept the UN package or face coercive action to end the conflict in Darfur, which has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced two million in four years.
The conflict erupted in February 2003, when ethnic minority rebels complaining of marginalization launched an uprising which was fiercely repressed by government troops and allied militias.
(AFP)