General Assembly: Ban and Rwandan President discuss various issues

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today had a meeting with Rwanda President Paul Kagame, on the sidelines of the General Assembly''s high-level debate, during which they discussed a range of issues, including maternal and child health.

The Secretary-General thanked Mr. Kagame for his personal role in promoting progress towards the achievement of the globally agreed development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and for and for chairing the meeting of the MDG Advocacy Group on Wednesday.

Mr. Ban said he was very satisfied to learn that Rwanda would continue its important role in UN peacekeeping operations, and particularly in the strife-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur.

The Secretary-General and Mr. Kagame also discussed the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Mapping Report, which will be released on 1 October.

Prepared by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the report will describe more than 600 incidents of serious human rights violations in the DRC during the period between 1993 and 2003, in which tens of thousands of people were killed.

Covering not only the war-torn east but the entire territory of the DRC, it has the overarching objective of helping the Congolese Government to establish transitional judicial systems and fight against impunity.