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.
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.
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.
Welcoming recent political rapprochement between Sudan and South Sudan but calling on those countries to make more progress on border issues, the Security Council today renewed the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) until 15 May 2021.
The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, in connection with the examination of the sixth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Sudan (document S/2020/614), agreed to convey the following messages through a public statement by the Chair of the Working Group:
Honduras deposited the fiftieth instrument of ratification to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, resulting in it being entered into force in January 2021. The Secretary-General said the Treaty is a commitment towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, which is the Organization’s highest disarmament priority.
The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:
