Nigerian to be new force commander for UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today named a Nigerian major-general as the new Force Commander of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

Major General Moses Bisong Obi previously served in senior posts in two UN peacekeeping missions in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). He also served as the commanding officer of the regional Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).

He succeeds Lieutenant General Paban Jung Thapa of Nepal, who the Secretary-General thanked today for his dedicated service to UNMIS and his leadership of the military component through a challenging period of Sudan’s peace process.

UNMIS was established in 2005 to support the peace agreement that ended the decades-long north-south civil war in Sudan, a conflict in which at least 2 million people were killed and some 4.5 million more driven from their homes.