Darfur: UN envoy continues holding meetings in Sudan

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, today left Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where he met with senior Government official, and travelled Nyala for further talks with other groups.

The Special Envoy will be meeting with representatives of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and civil society groups, as well as with UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local authorities, Mr. Ban’s spokesperson Michele Montas said at a press briefing in New York today.

Prior to arriving in Sudan, Mr. Eliasson and his African Union (AU) counterpart, Salim Ahmed Salim, chaired a two-day meeting in Tripoli, Libya, on fostering a peace settlement in strife-torn Darfur.

The UN Mission in Sudan, known as UNMIS, reported that harassment by the military continues to displace many people in Darfur. IDPs now number over 35,000 in Al Salam camp in South Darfur, and they are also flowing into Zam Zam camp from the Dobo area.

Meanwhile, this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) assisted the return of 150 refugees from Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, bringing to the total number of those repatriated to Southern Sudan and Blue Nile State to 150,000.

IDPs are also being repatriated by air, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that approximately 300 people have been flown back to Yambio and Tambura in Western Equatoria from Khartoum, with 1,300 additional IDPs expected to benefit from air operations.