With just hours to the official secession of South Sudan from the North, Humanitarian Aid agencies are concerned about plans by the United Nations to reduce the number of Peace Keeping troops being sent to Southern Sudan.
A joint press release released on Friday by the Aid groups quotes the director of Human Rights Watch, Daniel Bekele, arguing that the increasing violence and human rights violations this year underscore the need for a robust and flexible peacekeeping presence in South Sudan.
Oxfam international spokesperson, said on Wednesday that the U.N. Security Council had initially planned to deploy some 7,000 peacekeepers to Southern Sudan ahead of its independence, but some council members want to send fewer troops.
But the United Nations Mision in Sudan Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRCG), Haile Menkerios, told a press conference in Khartoum on Thursday, that the United Nations will continue its support to the Government of Sudan, the Government of South Sudan through its Agencies, Funds and Programmes, a new Mission in South Sudan and a new Mission in Abyei.
Menkerios also noted that that the Government of Sudan and the Sudan’s People have largely succeeded in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
// Cue in: Overall the government of sudan…
Cue out: … was largely respected.//
The comprehensive Peace Agreement reached six years ago, was intended to bring an end one of Africa’s deadliest and longest conflicts.
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