UN Gazeti
Wednesday 28 March 2007
Issue No. 214
UN Observances
UN IN AFRICA
9000 RETURN TO SOUTHERN SUDAN
Almost 9,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have gone back home to southern Sudan since the start of the year under the joint plan by the United Nations, the Sudanese Government and the Government in Southern Sudan to promote returns as part of the comprehensive peace agreement ending the country’s long-running civil war.
The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported today that 8,944 IDPs have returned to various locations across the south of the country, some as part of the joint plan and some as spontaneous returns to areas that are now safe and free of armed groups.
The new returns join an estimated 850,000 IDPs and 102,000 refugees who have already returned home and begun reintegrating into their former communities following the end of the north-south war in 2005.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DARFUR: UN AND AFRICAN UNION ENVOYS MEET AREA LEADERS
27 March 2007 – The United Nations Special Envoy for Darfur and his counterpart from the African Union held talks yesterday with representatives of the war-torn Sudanese region’s Arab tribes and leaders of its civil society groups as part of ongoing efforts to revitalize the peace process and end the bloodshed that has led to the killing of at least 200,000 people since 2003.
Jan Eliasson and the AU’s Salim Ahmed Salim spoke with the Darfur representatives in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where they have already met this week with senior Government ministers and Opposition leaders, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported.
The mission said the civil society and Arab tribal leaders told the two envoys their views on how to attain a sustainable settlement of the Darfur problem, where Government forces and allied Janjaweed militias have fought rebel groups since they took up arms, partly in protest over the distribution of resources.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG CALLS ON CONGO PARTIES TO ENSURE PEACE
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on both the Government and opposition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to shoulder their responsibilities to democracy to ensure a full transition to peace after last year’s historic elections intended to set the seal on decades of civil war and factional fighting.
Mr. Ban’s appeal, in his latest report to the Security Council, was prepared before two days of clashes in Kinshasa, the capital, between Government forces and the security detail of opposition leaser and former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, but it gained added weight from the violence which killed nearly 100 people and wounded 111 others, mostly soldiers, before subsiding. UN peacekeepers are still patrolling the city.
“I strongly urge the political leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to respect the principles of transparency, inclusiveness and tolerance of dissent,” Mr. Ban writes in the report, calling for an extension till 31 December, of the UN Mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC, with a military and police strength of nearly 18,000.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
WORLD MUST ACT TO REDUCE EXTREME WEATHER
Citing one of the worst cyclone seasons in recent memory in Madagascar as an example, the United Nations body that seeks to mitigate the impact of natural disasters called on the international community to invest more in Programme to reduce the effects of extreme weather spawned by global warming.
“We need to put in place mechanisms that can help our societies adapt to this new situation,” UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Director Sálvano Briceño said of the impact of climate change, ascribed largely to human activities such as the emission of heat trapping gasses from the use of fossil fuels.
“The Hyogo Framework for Action adopted in Kobe, Japan in 2005 offers recommendations that should be implemented and can be effective to reduce disaster risks caused by climate-related hazards,” he added, referring to the Hyogo Framework for Action: 2005 – 2015, adopted by 168 Governments at the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN INTENSIFIES EFFORTS TO HELP CENTRAL AFRICANS FLEEING VIOLENCE
Stepping up its response to the increasing waves of displacement in the Central African Republic (CAR), where rebel attacks, banditry and fighting have driven almost 300,000 people from their homes, the United Nations refugee agency has led a joint mission with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the country’s remote northeast and opened a new field office in one of its neighbours.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists today in Geneva that the joint mission at the weekend visited the area around Birao, the main town in the CAR’s northeast and the scene of brutal fighting earlier this month.
Nearly the entire population of 14,000 people fled Birao following the attack by the rebel group, the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), in which more than 700 houses were burned and vital stocks of food and seeds for the upcoming planting season were destroyed, she said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
SRI LANKA: BAN KI-MOON SAYS PARTIES MUST END CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday spoke out against escalating violations of the 2002 ceasefire between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and called for them to return to the negotiating table.
A spokesperson for Mr. Ban said he is “disturbed” by the intensifying violence, which include an air attack by the LTTE.
“He deeply regrets that air raids, military confrontations on the ground, and suicide bombings have become a daily occurrence, prompting massive displacement and suffering for civilians,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECURITY COUNCIL EXTENDS MANDATE OF UN COMMISSION PROBING HARIRI MURDER
The United Nations Security Council yesterday extended for one year the mandate of the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) probing the 2005 terrorist attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others.
In a unanimously adopted resolution, the Council responded to a request by the Lebanese Government, which sought an extension through 15 June 2008 of the mission’s mandate, set to expire on that date this year.
“The Lebanese Government hopes that Commissioner Serge Brammertz, who is doing a highly professional job at the head of the Commission, will continue in the exercise of his duties during the coming period,” Prime Minister Fuad Siniora wrote in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL CALLS FOR PROBE INTO ALLEGED ISRAELI ABUSES
The United Nations Human Rights Council yesterday adopted a resolution without a vote which called for two urgent fact-finding missions to be dispatched to the occupied Palestinian territory, voicing concern that previous attempts to investigate potential human rights abuses had been hindered by Israel.
The 47-member Council noted with regret that Israel had not cooperated with two previous resolutions which dispatched the missions.
A resolution in July said Israel must “end its military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, abide scrupulously by the provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights law, and refrain from imposing collective punishment on Palestinian civilians,” while a November resolution called for the “immediate protection of the Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory in compliance with human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
MORE THAN 400 GANGSTERS SEIZED IN UN-BACKED CRACKDOWN IN HAITI
More than 400 Haitian gang members have been arrested since the beginning of the year in operations by the Haitian National Police (HNP), backed by United Nations police and military to crack down on violent crime, UN officials reported yesterday.
“Our joint operations are increasingly successful,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) spokesman David Wimhurst told the UN News Service. “This is the highest rate of arrests and detentions to date.”
The arrests have been made both in the Port-au-Prince, the capital, where UN forces, at times hundreds strong, have helped the HNP bring relative stability to some of the violence-ridden country’s most dangerous areas, such as Cité Soleil and Martissant, and in the countryside where some of the gang leaders have fled.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
COLOMBIA: UN CONCERNED OVER NEW THREATS TO HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Thirteen human rights organizations in southern Colombia have received death threats from an emergent illegal armed group, the New Generation, United Nations officials have reported in their latest update on the violence-wracked South American country.
“Their work is indispensable for the preservation and development of a state of law,” the Colombian office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a statement expressing concern over the threats against the organizations in the Nariño region.
“The office wishes to reiterate the importance of the work of human rights defenders in Colombia,” it added, noting that the latest threats follow an earlier series made in February and in May and June last year.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNHCR CONCERNED AT LACK OF ACCESS TO DISPLACED AFGHANS
The United Nations refugee agency yesterday expressed concern at the recent displacement of Afghans due to the ongoing conflict in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where nearly 5,000 families have been driven from their homes.
“Under the current security situation, access by UN agencies and our partners remains limited,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a news briefing in Geneva.
Despite this the agency has been working in recent weeks with the Afghan government, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and other UN agencies to help the nearly 5,000 families in Helmand province.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
For more information on the United Nations and its activities, please visit the main U.N website at www.un.org or the U.N Kenya website at www.un-kenya.org
|
