Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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New UN Chief Heads to Africa, Faces Peacekeeping Demands
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=15F596C:A6F02AD83191E1601127795B225379F29574F7DCC14957C0 Ban Ki-moon's
first stop is DRC, where post-war elections were recently held with
help from the United Nations Ban Ki-moon is making his first trip to
Africa as U.N. secretary-general, with many peacekeeping demands.
VOA's Nico Colombant reports from our West and Central Africa in
Dakar.







Ban Ki-moon (file)Mr. Ban's first stop is the Democratic Republic of
Congo, where post-war elections were recently held with help from the
United Nations.

The secretary-general's spokesman, Yves Sorokobi, tells VOA, the trip
will give the new secretary-general valuable field experience.

"Of course, he has been there in his previous career as Korean
diplomat, but now he is going as head of the United Nations. So it is
a stop to get acquainted with the realities in the field and see how
people are working to help in those countries. The Congo of course is
our biggest operation," said Sorokobi.







UN troops protecting a Bemba TV station (file photo)Eva Marie Smets,
the policy and advocacy coordinator in Kinshasa of the British-based
charity group Oxfam, says she hopes the U.N. peacekeeping mission in
the Congo will remain the world's largest.

"Some of the security and especially the protection for the civilian
population has not yet been fully solved in the moment. So, ideally,
there could be more troops but considering other peacekeeping demands
in Africa, that is obviously always difficult," she said.







One region where new U.N. peacekeepers are being sought is the border
area separating Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan, near
Sudan's warring Darfur conflict.

An initial U.N. technical mission concluded it was too dangerous for
peacekeepers to be sent there, because of a surge in fighting by
rebels and militias in those countries. But U.N. Secretariat spokesman
Sorokobi says it is still possible.

"U.N. peacekeepers are military operations. They are fully empowered
with the mandate of self-defense. They have deployed in situations
that were more volatile than what we have in those regions," said
Sorokobi.







Sudanese refugee children sit in their makeshift classroom,  in the
refugee camp Kou Kou Angarana in Chad some 30 kilometers from the
Sudan border (April 2006 photo) Hundreds of thousands of refugees in
the region have spilled across borders, mostly from Sudan. Sorokobi
says aid workers need help to support them.

"The conditions for humanitarians of course are different because they
do not have the military protection that they may need," he said.
"Part of the reasons that we are considering deploying in those
regions is because that would also help the humanitarians in
delivering assistance because they would then have protection from our
people in performing their duties."

Secretary-General Ban will also be attending next week's African Union
summit in Ethiopia, where he is expected to discuss a hybrid African
and United Nations force for the Darfur region itself.

The African body has proposed boosting its existing peacekeepers, who
have acted more as monitors, but says it needs U.N. funding.

Some African officials have suggested China as a major contributor for
an expanded force, to coincide with its growing economic role on the
continent.


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