122 Ghanaian Troops Arrive In South Sudan To Bolster UN Peacekeeping Mission

Martin Nesirky, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, announced at the UN Headquarters today that 122 Ghanaian soldiers arrived in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on Wednesday to join the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) through an intermission cooperation arrangement, in order to further strengthen the Mission's protection capacity.

The Ghanaian peacekeepers had been serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire.

The Security Council on 24 December authorized almost doubling the United Nations peacekeeping force in strife-torn South Sudan to nearly 14,000 in the face of a rapidly deteriorating Securityand humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of civilians dead and tens of thousands of others driven from their homes.

As requested by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council unanimously approved a temporary increase in the strength of the UN Mission in South Sudan to up to 12,500 military and 1,323 police from a current combined strength of some 7,000, through the transfer of units if necessary from other UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Darfur, Abyei, Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia.

More than 70,000 people are currently seeking refuge at UN bases throughout the country after violence flared up in mid-December between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and former deputy president Riek Machar.