Annan arrives in South Africa at start of two-week regional tour

Kicking off a two-week official visit to Africa, Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in South Africa today, where he is to meet with President Thabo Mbeki and address the Parliament tomorrow in Cape Town.

He is also meeting with the heads of UN agencies working in the country, as well as the UN country team.

After South Africa, Mr. Annan will visit Madagascar, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to meet with the countries’ leaders.

In the DRC, where the UN is fielding over 16,800 uniformed personnel to back up a peace agreement that ended the most lethal fighting in the world since World War II, he will address the Congolese people and is expected to travel outside Kinshasa, the capital, to Kisangani.

The UN is currently helping to organize national elections for 18 June, in the largest and most expensive such operation it has ever undertaken, to cement the transition to peace and democracy after a six-year civil war that cost 4 million lives through fighting and the attendant humanitarian catastrophe.