UN Peace Operations

KINSHASA — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday urged the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UN mission there to step up protection for almost two million people displaced by conflict.

"The internally displaced are among the most vulnerable people in the region, and they desperately need greater protection and assistance," Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at HRW said, presenting an 88-page report based on interviews with 146 displaced people.

The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Liberia for a year but called for plans to transfer responsibility for security to government authorities.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the council endorsed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's recommendation that free, fair and peaceful presidential and legislative elections next year be "a core benchmark" for further reductions in the U.N. force. It also asked Ban to continue monitoring progress on other benchmarks, including improving the capabilities of the national police.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, made a hurried and unexpected visit to Kigali last week to persuade Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, not to carry out a threat to withdraw all Rwandan peacekeepers from UN duty – including troops protecting civilians in Darfur. The UN delegation would be well aware of the security council's shameful decision to pull its peacekeepers out of Rwanda in 1994, at the height of the genocide of the Tutsi people. It was Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front that eventually brought the genocide to an end.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Perpetrators of human rights violations in the Congo were arrested during enhanced security operations, the U.N. mission there announced.

The U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or MONUSCO, launched Operation Shop Window two weeks ago to ramp up security in border regions were hundreds of women and children were gang-raped by rebel forces.

9 September 2010 – The United Nations has voiced its strong condemnation after today’s terrorist attack at the main airport in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which has killed two African peacekeepers and several civilians.
In a joint statement, the heads of the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) described the attack as a “heinous act of terrorism.”

Nairobi (Press Release):  On 9 September, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia (SRSG), Dr Augustine P. Mahiga, the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission for Somalia, Ambassador Boubacar Diarra and the IGAD Facilitator For Somalia Peace and National Reconciliation, Hon Kipruto arap Kirwa undertook a joint working visit to Somalia for consultations with President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.  The three envoys were received by the President in Mogadishu