Sudan ‘threatened to shoot down UN helicopter’ in Abyei
UN peacekeepers have been tasked with monitoring the withdrawal of northern and southern forces
Sudan threatened to shoot a helicopter trying to evacuate UN peacekeepers wounded by a landmine in the disputed Abyei region, a top UN official says.
Peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the UN spent three hours trying to persuade the government to let the airlift take place.
Three wounded soldiers died while the negotiations were being held, he said.
The peacekeepers were sent earlier this month to Abyei, claimed by Sudan and the newly independent South Sudan.
Within days of their arrival from Ethiopia, their convoy hit a landmine in Mabok, south-east of Abyei town.
One peacekeeper died instantly while another three died later, said Mr Le Roy, the UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping.
“We didn’t get the clearance for the Medivac helicopter to take off immediately,” he said.
“They prevented us from taking off by threatening to shoot at the helicopter.”
Mr Le Roy said “no-one can say” whether the delay in airlifting the peacekeepers had contributed to their deaths.
A board of inquiry was looking into the incident, he said.
‘Preventing incursions’
Seven other peacekeepers were injured by the blast.
The village where the landmine exploded had been occupied by troops loyal to the government in Khartoum, which has signed the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of anti-personnel mines.
Northern forces had occupied Abyei in May, raising fears of a renewal of Sudan’s 21-year north-south conflict.
After the offensive, more than 100,000 people fled the territory, mainly to South Sudan, which gained independence on 9 July.
But in June, both the north and south agreed to withdraw their troops from Abyei, leaving a 20km (12-mile) buffer zone along the border.
A week later, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to send a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force to Abyei to monitor the withdrawal, as well as the human rights situation.
The resolution established a new UN peacekeeping force, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (Unisfa).
It also ordered Unisfa to protect civilians and to “protect the Abyei area from incursions by unauthorised elements”.
Sudan’s permanent representative to the UN, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, said northern forces would withdraw as soon as the Ethiopian troops had been deployed.
Three blue helmets die in Abyei after Sudan denied medical evacuation
August 4, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A three-hour delay by Sudanese authorities of the medical evacuation of three wounded Ethiopian peacekeepers in the country’s hotly contested region of Abyei may have led to their death, according to the United Nations.
- UN Peacekeepers on Patrol in Abyei (UN Photo/Stuart Price)
The three peacekeepers, who were serving with newly established UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), sustained injuries along with seven of their peers when their patrol vehicle hit a landmine on Thursday. The incident caused the immediate death of one peacekeeper.
Alain Le Roy, the outgoing UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said the other three peacekeepers succumbed to their wounds awaiting medical evacuation.
“We didn’t get the clearance for the Medevac helicopter to take off immediately,” the UN official told reporters at UN Headquarters, adding that Sudanese authorities had threatened to shoot the aircraft down if it took off without clearance.
Le Roy said that a board of inquiry is investigating the matter and that his boss UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had already raised the issue with Sudanese authorities.
According to Le Roy, under the status of forces agreement made between the UN and the government of Sudan states, medical evacuation flights do not require prior authorisation.
However, Le Roy said it was difficult to establish whether the lives of the three peacekeepers could have been saved if the helicopter had been allowed to take off immediately.
The incident comes at a tense point in the relationship between the world body and Sudan after the latter accused the UN Security Council of attempting to “manipulate” the mandate of the joint UN-AU Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
Sudan, which recently decided not to renew mandate of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) after the South’s secession last month, also warned against the appointment of any former UNMIS employee in UNISFA.
UNISFA, established with a mandated strength of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeepers to monitor the security situation in Abyei, has already deployed 1,500 troops. The mission was agreed between Sudan and South Sudan as part of security and political arrangements to defuse tension in the area following its seizure by Sudan’s army in May.
A referendum was supposed to decide the dispute in January but Sudan and South Sudan could not agree on who was allowed to vote.
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Sudan not to accept UNMIS personnel in Abyei peacekeeping mission
August 3, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan has reaffirmed rejection to the appointment of any employee of the outgoing UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).
- UNMIS troops prepare to patrol town of Abyei (UN Photo service/Stuart Price)
The spokesman of the country’s foreign ministry, Al-Ubayd Muruah, told reporters in Khartoum on Thursday that his ministry had sent a written letter to the UN expressing refusal to the inclusion of any former UNMIS employee in UNISFA.
Sudan has decided to terminate the mandate of UNMIS, which was established to monitor the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which culminated in the secession of South Sudan last month. However, the mission is currently relocating to South Sudan where it is allowed to operate and will be referred to as the UN Mission in South Sudan UNMISS.
UNISFA, composed of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeepers set to be deployed in the north-south’s hotly-contested region of Abyei, had its mandate approved last month by the UN Security Council. The mission was agreed in June between Sudan and South Sudan pending determination of Abyei’s status.
“It must be clear to the international community that UNMIS’s role is finished,” Muruah said, warning against any attempt to “hijack or manipulate” UNISFA’s role.
According to the ministry’s spokesman, the decision to prohibit the employment of UNMIS is “a precautionary measure,” citing the example of the UNSC’s “attempt to circumvent” the mandate of the joint UN-AU Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
“Therefore we had to be cautious,” he added.
Sudan on Tuesday chided the UNSC over its decision to extend the mandate of UNAMID for one year in the country’s war-battered region of Darfur.
The country’s foreign minister Ali Karti threatened to terminate UNAMID’s mandate against the background of what he termed attempts to include in the mission’s mandate the issue of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which seeks the arrest of Sudan President Omer Al-Bashir on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in the western region.
Karti accused the UNSC of meddling in his country’s internal affairs and tarnishing its image.
He further expressed Sudan’s rejection to the UNSC’s resolution demand for coordination between UNISFA and UNMIS.
Similarly, the undersecretary of Sudan’s foreign ministry, Ambassador Rahmah Mohamed Osman, on Thursday held a meeting with the UK ambassador in Khartoum Nickolas Kay and discussed the UNSC’s resolution to extend UNMID mandate.
Rahmah said that the new UNSC resolution contains provisions breaching the clear agreement between Sudan, the UN and the AU on establishing UNAMID in accordance with strictly defined jurisdictions
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UN Peacekeeper Killed in Darfur
A United Nations spokesman says one U.N. peacekeeper was killed and another seriously wounded Friday when their vehicle was attacked by gunmen in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The U.N. says the peacekeepers were part of the Joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur (UNAMID) and were ambushed in the village of Duma, northeast of the South Darfur capital of Nyala.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur has sent investigators to the scene of the attack and Sudanese government police are searching the area.
Fighting between government forces, allied militiamen and rebel groups has been going in in Darfur since 2003.
This attack comes a little more than a month after a U.N. peacekeeper was shot and killed in West Darfur and less than a week after four Ethiopian peacekeepers died in an attack in the Abyei region on the border of Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan.
The United Nations says a board of inquiry is looking into the deaths of three of the four Ethiopian peacekeepers who died in Sudan earlier this week when authorities delayed their evacuation by helicopter.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roi told reporters medical flights are not supposed to require authorization under the peacekeeping agreement between the U.N. and Sudan.
But he said the crew of the Medevac helicopter complied with the delay because Sudanese troops threatened to shoot them down if they took off without clearance.
Le Roi said there is no way to know whether the three peacekeepers, critically injured in a land mine blast, would have survived if they had been moved sooner.
In addition, a U.N. spokesman on Friday said Sudan’s government also delayed the rescue by refusing to allow a helicopter to be sent in from the town of Wau, in South Sudan, saying it was in a different country. A helicopter was finally sent from Kadugli, which is in northern Sudan.
A U.N. spokesperson said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had taken the issue to Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N. The spokesperson said Mr. Ban stressed that any delay is “unacceptable” when it comes to saving lives.
The three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast while on patrol in the disputed Abyei region. A fourth peacekeeper died instantly in the explosion. Seven others were wounded but survived.
As UN Admits Abyei Delay Was For Medevac from S. Sudan, What Safeguards?
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 5 — As the delay associated with the death of three peacekeepers in Abyei garners more interest, the UN on Friday afternoon reversed its position of hours earlier, and admitted that it asked Sudan if it could medevac the injured peacekeepers using a helicopter from Wau in South Sudan, and that Sudan said no, “that is a different country.”
This is what UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant told Inner City Press on Thursday evening, but which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky denied Friday at noon, saying that the request had been to fly the helicopter from Kadugli in Sudan.
If Khartoum blocked a medical flight entirely within Sudan it would be one thing; for them to deny access to a helicopter from a country which just broken away, while heartless, is not unexpected.
So the question is, why did the UN not plan for it, not admit it when it happened, and try to dissemble about it even after the cat was out of the bag, due to the UK Ambassador’s commendable candor?
And what ensures that if a UN peacekeeper is injured today in Abyei, they too might not bleed out due to a lack of planning? Watch this site.
In Wau, Lyall Grant in light jacket, Rice on the mic, SC reaction to copter block not shown
Note: The Council meetings on August 11 about Sudan — but outgoing DPKO chief Alain Le Roy’s last day is August 10. So once again at the UN: no accountability?
Footnote: Earlier this year when the Security Council traveled to Sudan, they intended to go to Abyei. But even before fighting flared up, there was controversy about whether they would fly in via Wau in the South, which has a shorter runway, or Kadugli, where ICC-indicted Southern Kordofan government Ahmed Haroun might greet them on the tarmac. Ultimately they didn’t go: but they were on notice of the problems of air travel to and from Abyei. We will continue on this.
UN Claims Medevac to Abyei Was from Kadugli, Not S. Sudan as UK Said
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 5, updated with UN reversal here— The UN’s lack of transparency about the delay of medevac helicopter transport from Abyei of three peacekeepers who died after a landmine explosion grew worse on Friday, highlighting the UN’s lack of planning for the UNISFA peacekeeping mission of Ethiopian soldiers it is paying from in Abyei.
On August 4, after outgoing chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy answered Inner City Press that the Sudanese government “prevented us to take off… by threatening to shoot at the helicopter.” Video here, from Minute 46:56. Audio here, from Minute 46:53.
Le Roy said that while the UN had yet to sign a Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA with the Khartoum government for the UNISFA mission in Abyei, the old SOFA of the expired UN Mission in Sudan was still in place.
But later on August 4, UK Permanent Representative to the UN Mark Lyall Grant told Inner City Press that “the UN asked for permission for helicopter to come from Wau to pick up the injured. The Sudanese government said they couldn’t come from Wau because that was a different country. So they said can we bring a helicopter from Kadugli. It took about three hours or so to get that permission, by the time they picked them up and took them back, it was too late.”
On August 5 Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm or deny that the UN has asked to fly a medevac helicopter from Wau and had been denied.
Nesirky in essence denied it, saying “the helicopter was to come from Kadugli to bring the wounded peacekeepers to Kadugli.”
The difference is important: if the possibility of needing to bring a helicopter from Wau, since July 9 in the independence nation of South Sudan, had not been thought out by the UN, it would in many views be negligence.
The reported actions of Sudan are outrageous — but not unforseeable. So it is responsible for the UN to put peacekeepers into Abyei without having an agreed plan to get them out for medical treatment if needed?
Was it a helicopter from Kadugli to Abyei, both in Sudan, that Khartoum “threatened to shoot down,” as Le Roy put it? Nesirky would not repeat the shooting threat statement, rather saying that that “could not take off because there was a long delay” in getting permission.
But if as Le Roy told Inner City Press on August 4 the old UNMIS Status of Forces Agreement is still in place, why would permission have been needed to fly within Sudan for medical purposes? Nesirky himself went on to say “it is standard procedure that medevacs do not require clearance.”
Why did the UN wait for clearance if it was only asking to fly within Sudan, and not from South Sudan? Is there a SOFA in place? What ensures that the same thing can’t happen today, or tomorrow? Watch this site.
The US Mission to the UN, meanwhile, had no response 25 hours later to these questions from Inner City Press, to USUN’s two top spokesmen:
This is a request for comment from the US Mission or Ambassador Rice on Alain Le Roy’s reply just now to Inner City Press, on UN TV, that in the case of the Abyei peacekeepers who died after mine explosion, the Sudanese government “prevented us to take off… by threatening to shoot at the helicopter.”http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/library/2011/08/40554.html?app=6&lang=en from Minute 46:53.
What is your comment, will you be seeking action in the Security Council, and what is your position on there not being a signed SOFA for UNISFA in Abyei?
Relatedly, what follow up will you seek on the UN Human Rights report on Southern Kordofan, which DPKO has still not released but the leaked copy of which describes war crimes as well as inaction, even before July 9, by the Egyptian battalion of UN peacekeepers in Kadugli?
Neither lead spokesman Mark Kornblau nor his deputy, admittedly out of the office and about to leave the Mission for non-spokesman work with the State Department, responded to these questions.
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