SUDAN: First blue berets arrive

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NAIROBI, 29 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - The arrival of 12 Nepalese soldiers in the central Sudanese city of El-Obeid this week signalled the start of the deployment of UN peacekeepers across the country to monitor the ceasefire agreement and stabilise the southern region, a UN spokesperson said.

"The first six troops arrived last Monday and another six came on Wednesday, together with their equipment," George Somerwill, deputy spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), told IRIN on Friday.

"They are drivers and logistical support personnel, not military observers," he said, noting that they would eventually move to the eastern Sudanese town of Kassala.

"Other Nepalese troops landed this morning [Friday], and we expect more to arrive over the following days," he added.

According to Somerwill, India, Egypt, and Zambia were among the countries that had pledged to contribute substantial contingents of soldiers and military observers.

The UN Security Council on March 24 unanimously approved the deployment of 10,000 troops and more than 700 civilian police to southern Sudan for an initial period of six months to support the 9 January Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The agreement ended two decades of civil war in the south.

The council provided UNMIS with the mandate to monitor and verify the ceasefire agreement, help set up a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme for former combatants and promote national reconciliation and human rights.

The UN military deployment plan had been finalised, the UNMIS spokesperson noted, "but it is all quite fluid still".

"I’m not aware of any other scheduled deployments in the immediate future," Somerwill added.

General Fazle Elahi Akbar, the Bangladeshi UN force commander, visited the main southern cities of Malakal, Wau and Juba on 21 and 22 April to assess the ground preparations for the deployment.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) reportedly ambushed and killed nine people near Juba in southern Sudan.

"A civilian convoy which was going to Torit from Juba was ambushed by LRA elements and they managed to kill about seven civilians and two soldiers two days back," Joseph Duer, a minister in the regional southern government was quoted by Reuters News Agency as saying on Wednesday.

A senior Sudanese military official who declined to be named said the news had not yet reached the army headquarters in Khartoum.

"Many, many attacks on military and civilian vehicles happen on the road from Juba to Torit," the official told IRIN on Thursday.

"The LRA has a base east of Torit, in the Imatong Hills. That’s where these attacks are coming from," he added.

The Uganda army spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Thursday that he had heard reports from leaders in the north but had been unable to verify the ambush from his own sources.

On 21 April, about 15 LRA fighters attacked the town of Nimule on the Ugandan border but were repelled by SPLM/A forces. Two civilians and one SPLM/A soldier were reportedly killed in the attack.

According to a UN report published on Tuesday, an SPLM/A delegation met with top leadership of the Equatoria military area on 14 April in Juba to explore ways in which to fight the LRA jointly.

According to the report, an agreement had been reached between the government forces and the SPLM/A to conduct joint operations against the LRA until they were pushed across the border into Uganda.

The LRA has waged a 19-year war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni and is known for targeting and mutilating civilians. More than 20,000 children have been abducted to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves during that time.

[ENDS]