Former Dutch environment minister named UN envoy for Sudan

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has informed the Security Council that he intends to appoint Jan Pronk of the Netherlands his Special Representative for Sudan and head of the peace support operation that may soon be authorized by the Council, a UN spokesperson said today.

A response from the Council was expected soon, spokesperson Marie Okabe added.

In addition to having been Environment Minister and three-time Minister of Development Cooperation in the Dutch Government, Mr. Pronk also has served in various capacities with the United Nations, including as Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Assistant Secretary-General in the UN Secretariat, Chair of the UN Conference of Parties of the Convention on Climate Change, and the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said for security reasons more than 106,000 Sudanese refugees have moved from the Chad-Sudan border to eight camps deeper inside Chad. The move was being made quickly to beat the rainy season which would make the roads impassable for the agency’s trucks.

At Iridimi camp, some of the 15,008 refugees began moving into five-person tents from the transit centre part of the camp this week.

UNHCR was also transferring 66 tons of corn, soya blend, rice, oil and beans provided by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to Am Nabak, where the agency was planning to open a camp. Some 3,000 refugees had already arrived at the site on their own and on foot from the border towns of Ogona and Tine, it said.

So far this year, UNHCR said, it has brought in 1,700 tons of aid for the refugees in eastern Chad on flights from Tanzania, Pakistan, Denmark, Germany and Gibraltar.