Authorities in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal allocated a piece of land on Tuesday to the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei in order to set-up new camp in Gok Machar.
The allocated land is located in Gok Machar in Aweil North County, just south of the disputed ‘Mile 14’ area. The camp will serve as sector headquarters for the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mission, which is tasked by the Cooperation Agreement with checking the demilitarized zone for violations. The camp will host 35 military observers from Sudan, 35 from South Sudan, and 35 from foreign countries.
Aguer Doordit, the Director General in the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure, said that the state allocated a plot 400 by 400 meters to UNISFA, after an assessment by himself and the county commissioner. The area is forested and will need to be cleared by “heavy machinery.”
The handover of land was witnessed by UNISFA officers and senior state officials, including the state minister for physical infrastructure, the state engineering coordinator, the Aweil North commissioner, and UNMISS representatives.
The UNISFA sector commander, Alex Appiah, claimed that civilians, and particularly farmers should remain calm and cultivate as per usual. “I will make sure that everything I can do to make sure that the agreement yields some fruit so that the ordinary civilian who has nothing to defend himself will feel more secure to go to do his farming and also look after his cattle.”
He also appealed to civilians to inform UNISFA of events as they happen so that the mission can react.
The hand-over ceremony Tuesday followed accusations by the state government that civilians in the demilitarized Kiir Adem area suffered several attacks from SAF or Sudanese militias. The most recent took place on Sunday and resulted in the death of four people and injury of six others.
Commenting on that incident, the UNISFA commander said: “I must confess that I heard it, and my heart bleeds – the Kiir Adem incident. Now we are bringing… resources. When we are on the ground we will make sure that such incidents do not occur.”
File Photo: Armored personnel carriers at the UNISFA base in Abyei (Radio Tamazuj)