Security Council mission visits UN facility in Uganda, confers with President

A delegation from the Security Council today visited the United Nations logistics support base in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, where they were briefed on the facility’s activities, and met with the country’s President, Yoweri Museveni, before heading to Sudan.

While in the southern Sudanese city of Juba, members of the Council will confer with leaders of the semi-autonomous region’s government and receive a briefing from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

They are visiting Sudan ahead of two key referenda planned for 9 January, one in which the inhabitants of southern Sudan will vote on whether to secede from the rest of the country, and the other in which the residents of the central area of Abyei will vote on whether to be part of the north or the south.

The referenda will be the final phase in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the 2005 pact that formally ended two decades of fighting between the northern-based Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in the south.

The Council delegation will also visit El Fasher, in the strife-torn region of Darfur, and the national capital, Khartoum.