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Guinea-Bissau: Ban appeals for ‘utmost restraint’ after killing of former navy chief

Guinea-Bissau: Ban appeals for ‘utmost restraint’ after killing of former navy chief

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the Government and political leaders of Guinea-Bissau to exercise utmost restraint and focus on development and reconciliation amid heightened tensions following the killing of the small West African country’s former Navy Chief.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the Government and political leaders of Guinea-Bissau to exercise utmost restraint and focus on development and reconciliation amid heightened tensions following the killing of the small West African country’s former Navy Chief.

“He is particularly distressed by the loss of life that occurred following the intervention of the security forces during protests against the killing,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson, Michele Montas, told the daily briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

“He urges the people of Guinea-Bissau not to take the law into their own hands. And he strongly encourages all national stakeholders to find negotiated solutions to their differences, and to avoid allowing impunity to prevail,” she added.

Last month, the Security Council extended the mandate of the seven-year-old UN Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) for another year in an effort to prevent a relapse into the bloodshed that marred much of the last decade when a civil war in which thousands were killed, wounded or forced from their homes.

The Forrmer Navy Chief, Commodore Lamine Sanha, was killed on 4 January.