Security Council approves special mission

The UN Security Council on Wednesday agreed to send a special mission to the DRC to discuss with the signatories of the Lusaka peace accord ways of bringing peace to the region. Council president Robert Fowler of Canada welcomed the ceasefire and disengagement plan agreed in Kampala at the weekend and urged the combatants to adhere to it. He also emphasised again
that the role of the UN Observer Mission to the DRC (MONUC) remained monitoring [not enforcing] the disengagement of forces.
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bernard Miyet had told the Council that the Kampala disengagement plan made the full phase two deployment by the UN more urgent. He noted that MONUC itself had stressed the need to deploy in the (government-held) towns of Mbandaka and Mbuji-Mayi "as rapidly as possible," a UN statement said.

The Security Council also expressed concern at the humanitarian situation, noted MONUC's mandate to facilitate humanitarian relief and stressed the need for all belligerents to ensure the safe access of relief staff to affected populations. Miyet had earlier spoken of deteriorating conditions in the east of the country and the plight of 550,000 internally-displaced
people (IDPs). The shortcomings in donor responses to the UN Consolidated Appeal for the region were worrying, Fowler told journalists. The appeal [for $162,949,262 for the Great Lakes Region and central Africa] was "woefully underfunded," council members said, and encouraged donors to respond urgently.