Troops Massing on Sudan-Chad Border

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon3 May 2009 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his concern today at reports of the recent build-up and movement of armed elements on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border, and called on the two countries to ease tensions.

“In this context, the Secretary-General welcomes the discussions towards the normalization of bilateral relations between the Governments of Chad and Sudan held this week in Doha,” Mr. Ban''s spokesperson said in a statement issued today.

The Secretary-General, in his most recent report on the deployment of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), stated that “the security situation along the Sudan-Chad border continued to be tense and unpredictable” during February and March of this year.

Last week in a briefing to the Security Council, Rodolphe Adada, the Joint African Union-UN Special Representative for Darfur and head of UNAMID, cited the state of relations between Sudan and Chad as an important factor with regard to the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

An estimated 300,000 people have been killed and another 2.7 million have been forced from their homes in Darfur since fighting erupted in 2003, pitting rebels against Government forces and allied Janjaweed militiamen.

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