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UN extends southern Sudan peacekeeping mission UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The Security Council voted unanimously
Wednesday night to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern
Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich border
region between the north and south. Some 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers are enforcing a 2005 peace deal
that ended more than two decades of civil war between the ethnic
African south and Sudan's Arab-dominated government in the capital
Khartoum -- but peace remains fragile. The disputed region in southern Kordofan province, where four
days of fighting between south Sudanese troops and Arab tribesman
ended Tuesday, is claimed by north and south, like the nearby oil
rich region of Abyei. Both have become potential flashpoints that
could wreck the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. In a report to the Security Council earlier this month,
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recent clashes and tensions in
the Abyei area "represent a potential threat to the agreement"
and to the national unity government in Khartoum that now includes
members of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement which led the war
in the south. In the resolution adopted Wednesday, the Security Council called
on all parties to cooperate fully with U.N. peacekeepers in the
Abyei region, "without prejudice to the final agreement on the
actual borders between the two sides." It also urged the U.N.
mission to consult with the parties and deploy personnel to the
Abyei region, including areas of Kordofan, "as appropriate." The resolution requests the U.N. mission to provide technical
and logistical support to help the parties demarcate the
north-south border, in accordance with the 2005 agreement. There is also a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force also
deployed in Darfur, in Sudan's west, to monitor a separate conflict
there. More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been
forced from their homes amid four years of fighting between local
rebels and government-allied janjaweed militias in Darfur.
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