29 March 2005

Darfur, Sudan: Following the UN Security Council’s decision last week to form the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), some 160 United Nations Volunteers (UNVs) will be deployed over the coming months to Sudan to support the peace process in the region.

Ana Rodriguez, UNV Programme Manager in Sudan, says UN Volunteers with UNMIS will work in the areas of public information, human rights, civil affairs, logistics and DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants and the displaced). A large number of Sudanese nationals will also be recruited as UN Volunteers, which, she says, will go a long way in building trust and gaining support from the people affected.

“The origins of the conflict in Sudan are extremely complex and have resulted in an unacceptably high level of loss of life and extreme suffering,” says Rodriguez. “We have a lot of work ahead of us and many challenges to face. Yet we do so gladly with the knowledge that our work will help the Sudanese people.”

Ten UN Volunteers have been in the country since early March as part of the UN Advance Mission in Sudan. They are assigned in the country’s Darfur region as Human Rights Officers and are helping monitor the living conditions of more than half a million refugees and an estimated four million uprooted by the conflict.

The Security Council voted unanimously on 24 March to deploy 10,000 troops and more than 700 civilian police in southern Sudan for an initial six months to assist in the implementation of the January 2005 peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. The signing of the peace deal formally ended two decades of civil war.