Sudan

The United Nations Resident Coordinator’s team in Brazil is supporting the state of Amazonas in tackling latest surge of COVID-19.  The United Nations Children’s Fund delivered 250 hygiene kits and food baskets, while the International Organization for Migration is working to mitigate transmission in indigenous and riverside communities.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

Deeply concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation in Uganda ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections on 14 January, the United Nations Human Rights Office calls on authorities there to protect the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and take steps to prevent electoral violence.

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, refer to the decisions respectively made by the African Union Peace and Security Council in communiqué PSC/PR/COMM. (CMLXVIII) of 30 November and the United Nations Security Council in resolution 2559 (2020) of 22 December, to terminate the mandate of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

Children make up nearly half the people who have fled Ethiopia’s Tigray region for Sudan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports.  Their most urgent needs are clean water and sanitation, as well as child-protection and gender-based violence services for the most vulnerable and at-risk refugees, the agency says.

Regional dynamics remained favorable to the peace process in Darfur, the Chair of the Security Council’s Sudan sanctions committee said during a videoconference meeting on 11 December, underscoring that such sanctions were not in place to punish the country, but to support its attainment of sustainable peace.

Justice in a key case is within reach for victims of crimes in Darfur, said the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in a 10 December video‑teleconference meeting, as she outlined improving relations with the Government of Sudan in efforts to hold perpetrators of atrocity crimes to account.

Officials briefing the Security Council today called for international support for Sudan as it advances in the face of complex challenges, outlining that country’s recent political progress and the transition from the African Union‑United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) to a newly mandated presence.

More than 47,000 Ethiopians have arrived in Sudan seeking safety, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.  A small number of Eritrean refugees also arrived from Tigray.  UNHCR and Sudanese authorities have now moved more than 11,000 refugees 70 kilometres from the Ethiopian border.

In Mali, camps shared by the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and France’s Force Barkhane, located in Menaka and Kidal, came under indirect mortar attack on 30 November, following an earlier attack on the Barkhane Forces in Gao.  There are no reports of casualties.