Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United Nations has been urged to procure unmanned
aerial vehicles to monitor the disputed border area between Sudan and South
Sudan.

UN special envoy to South Sudan Hilde Johnson said UAVs could help
help international peacekeepers monitor the Sudanese border.

Ms. Johnson told the Security Council that UN and African Union forces could not ensure an effective surveillance mission with helicopters, one of them shot
down in December 2012.

“I urge the council to take urgent action to support the mission in filling these critical resource and capability gaps,” Ms. Johnson said.

In an address to the council on July 8, Ms. Johnson said the UN’s helicopter fleet in South Sudan contained three platforms. She said UAVs would mark a safer method to monitor the turbulent border.

This marked the latest indication that the UN, with 6,900 peace-keepers around Sudan, was moving toward UAV procurement. Earlier, UN
secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, ahead of the renewal of the mission in July
2013, raised the prospect of UAV procurement as well as attack helicopters
and air transports.

The address by Ms. Johnson took place in wake of a report by South Sudan
that the Khartoum regime renewed air strikes along the border area. The UN
envoy said the violence was intense in the eastern state of Jonglei in South
Sudan. In April 2013, five UN peace-keepers were killed in an attack in
Jonglei.

“This is having a particularly detrimental effect on the mission’s
ability to implement its protection of civilians’ mandate,” Ms. Johnson
said. “Effective protection is only possible through being present in those
communities most at risk.”

  Ban Ki-Moon, Drones seen going where peackeepers can’t to monitor Sudan border, Hilde Johnson, Jonglei, South Sudan border, UN Security Council