The Security Council decided this morning to extend until 15 April 2018 the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA), and to limit support for the disputed territory’s border monitoring mechanism to a further five months, while awaiting implementation of measures agreed by Sudan and South Sudan.
The armed groups in Darfur today had largely been defeated, the ferocity of intercommunal violence had declined, and there had been no new large‑scale displacements, Bintou Keita, Assistant Secretary‑General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the Security Council today.
Briefing the Security Council on the situation between Sudan and South Sudan today, a senior peacekeeping official recommended that it extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) for another six months.
On 17 October 2017, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan enacted the amendments specified with strikethrough and underline in the entry below on its Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the travel ban and assets freeze set out in paragraph 3 of Security Council resolution 1591 (2005) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.
While moving forward with its reconfiguration efforts, the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) remained focused on the implementation of its key strategic priorities, including the protection of civilians, the Security Council heard today as it took up the Secretary-General’s latest report on that mission (document S/2017/776).
An upsurge of violence in the Central African Republic has caused a 50 per cent increase in the number of internally displaced people this year to a total of nearly 600,000. Fighting has engulfed territories that had been relatively stable, including Basse-Kotto, Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou, with almost 70 per cent of the country now in the hands of armed groups.
On 8 September 2017, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan was briefed by the Coordinator and two members of the Panel of Experts on the Sudan in connection with the Panel’s first report, which was submitted in accordance with paragraph 2 of resolution 2340 (2017).
Filippo Grandi paid his first official visit to Sudan as High Commissioner this week, with refugees continuing to flee the brutal conflict in South Sudan. Sudan has hosted more than 416,000 South Sudanese since 2013, including some 170,000 new arrivals in 2017, as well as refugees from Eritrea, Syria, Yemen and Chad.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat today announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Leonard Muriuki Ngondi of Kenya as Force Commander for the African Union‑United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). He succeeds Lieutenant General Frank Mushyo Kamanzi of Rwanda, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedication and effective leadership as head of UNAMID’s military component.
At its sixty-sixth meeting, on 22 June 2017, the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, in connection with the examination of the fifth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Sudan (S/2017/191), covering the period from 1 March 2011 to 31 December 2016, agreed to address the following messages through a public statement issued by the Chair of the Working Group.
