Peacekeeping

The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) has, in what it calls a major breakthrough, brokered a peace accord between the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka communities, who agreed to dialogue to protect people, livestock and property, and to find a sustainable solution to the final status of Abyei.

More than 1,000 migrants have died or disappeared since 2014 while trying to leave East Africa and the Horn of Africa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.  Most were travelling to the Arabian Peninsula or South Africa.  Migrants face violence, abandonment by smugglers, limited access to medical care and detention, among other dangers.

The United Nations Controller urged delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today to act to avert a looming liquidity crisis that could impact the delivery of the Organization’s mandates and services next year.

Food and nutrition aid has reached 2.1 million people in Myanmar during the first quarter of 2022, the World Food Programme (WFP) says.  WFP hopes to reach at least 4 million of the country’s most food-insecure and vulnerable people this year, subject to availability of resources and access to those in need, and calls for unimpeded humanitarian access.

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reports that 60 community members, including 20 women and 10 ex-combatants, are benefiting from its Community Violence Reduction project in a village in North Kivu’s Masisi Territory, where they are gaining skills in the installation and maintenance of street lighting.

Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today threw their support behind the Organization’s peacekeeping activities as Secretariat officials unveiled the details of a $6.5 billion budget earmarked for 11 missions in the upcoming 2022/23 fiscal year and the need to adequately fund peacebuilding activities through the Peacebuilding Fund.

The Security Council, acting unanimously today, extended for six months the mandate of its interim security force in Abyei, a contested region on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, as well as its tasks related to border monitoring.

Protais Mpiranya, the last of the major fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), is confirmed to have died.  Alleged to have been a senior leader of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Mr. Mpiranya was charged with eight counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as the murders of 10 Belgian United Nations peacekeepers.

Jayathma Wickramanayake, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, and The Body Shop, launched a campaign today that seeks to get young voices into the halls of power.  The campaign, “Be Seen, Be Heard”, seeks to create long-term structural changes that will make decision-making more inclusive of young people and ensure their participation in political life.

Despite an overall decrease in violence against civilians in South Sudan, cases of conflict-related sexual violence more than doubled between January and March, a new report issued by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).  It documented 63 cases during that period, up from 28 in the corresponding time period last year.