“Concrete steps” must be taken towards ending impunity for atrocity crimes in Darfur, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the Security Council on Wednesday, during her briefing on Sudan.
Peacekeepers have been sent to the northern Lakes region in South Sudan in a bid to deter further violence between communities there, the UN Mission in the country, UNMISS, said on Tuesday.
The UN migration agency appealed on Friday for the immediate liberation of a volunteer and child who’ve been missing since a gun battle in South Sudan at the weekend that claimed the lives of three agency workers.
Sudan and neighbouring South Sudan “have never been closer” to reaching a sustainable peace with each other, and their own internal armed opposition groups, the head of UN peacekeeping told the Security Council on Thursday.
The “great revolution” of Sudan has succeeded and the Government and people and will now rebuild and restore the values of human coexistence and social cohesion in the country as they try and turn the page on three decades of “abhorrent oppression, discrimination and warfare,” Prime Minister Abdullah Adam Hamdok told the United Nations on Friday evening.
Sudan is now on the long road to socio-economic recovery, following the establishment of a civilian-led government, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a high-level meeting on Friday, at UN Headquarters in New York.
Through the cooperation of the leaders of South Sudan, First Vice-President Taban Deng Gai on Thursday told the United Nations General Assembly that his country could become “a beacon of hope and peace”.
“With this milestone agreement, we are poised to accompany Sudan through an important moment in its history” – the words of UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday, as she signed a deal between the UN and the newly-constituted Government of Sudan to open a Human Rights Office in the capital, Khartoum.
“Important developments” under way in Sudan since midsummer, including a pledge to end the country’s outstanding conflicts, and the establishment of a new transitional government, could serve to edge the country’s people closer to stability, Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said, briefing the UN Security Council on Monday.
A United Nations expert group looking at human rights in South Sudan said on Friday that it is “deeply concerned” that, although the overall armed conflict has waned, there has been little progress in adhering to the peace agreement that guided the country thus far.
