Sudan’s Attalah Hamad Bashir reappointed to head IGAD

DJIBOUTI, March 23 (AFP) — Attalah Hamad Bashir has been reappointed executive secretary of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a club of seven east African states, Djibouti’s foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Bashir, a Sudanese national, was reappointed on Monday at an IGAD council of ministers’ meeting in Djibouti.

His existing mandate had been due to expire in April.

The chief roles of IGAD, whose members are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Erithrea, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and Sudan, are to mediate in peace processes in Sudan and Somalia.

At the same meeting, Uganda’s acting regional cooperation minister, Augustine Nshimye, called on Sudan’s government and main rebel movement, currently trying to clinch an accord in Kenya to end more than 20 years of civil war, “to move the process forward.”