The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), which is also mandated to monitor the Sudan – South Sudan border, per a 2012 deal between the two countries, says it has not been able to meet its own target for aerial patrols.

In a statement about a recent political and security meeting in Khartoum, UNISFA's press office revealed “challenges faced in the implementation of aerial verification and monitoring.”

Citing the chief of the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM), Brig General Zewdu Belay Malefiya, who presented a statement on behalf of UNISFA at the meeting in Khartoum, the UN mission's press officer said that the mission conducted only about a third of its planned aerial patrols.

“He informed that the Mechanism to-date was able to conduct only 37% of its planned aerial monitoring patrols as large number of patrols was cancelled owing to the rotation of UNISFA troops, bad weather conditions and insecurity,” the statement reads.

“He also noted that the restrictions on aerial monitoring of the SDBZ [Safe Demilitarized Border Zone] in the western sector continued and only 18 of 60 planned missions were conducted since October 2015 in the eastern sector of the Abyei Area.”

UNISFA called the security meeting in Khartoum this week “an important milestone, following the extra-ordinary meeting of JPSM held in October 2015 in Addis Ababa. It was held in a friendly and cordial manner.”