African crises set to top Security Council agenda this month

The crises and conflicts in Africa and the Middle East are expected to dominate the agenda at the Security Council this month, its President for July, Ambassador Wang Guangya of China, said today.

Briefing journalists on the Council’s programme of work, Mr. Wang noted that more than 50 per cent of the items on the provisional agenda related to Africa, from Sudan’s Darfur region and Somalia in the east to Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire in the west to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the central south.

The report of last month’s Council mission to Africa is also scheduled to be formally debated late next week.

In response to questions from reporters, Mr. Wang said some Council members were working on drafting an enabling resolution to authorize the establishment of the proposed hybrid African Union-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003.

The Sudanese Government indicated last month, after earlier reservations, that it unconditionally accepted the deployment of the hybrid force to take over from the existing but under-resourced AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS).

Turning to the Middle East, the Council will hold briefings and consultations on the situation in Lebanon and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The discussions will cover the report of the Lebanon Independent Border Assessment Team, which has been tasked with monitoring the border with Syria for possible illegal movements of arms.