UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — UN chief Ban Ki-moon plans to appoint Victor Da Silva Angelo of Portugal as his special envoy for the UN mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), his press office said Monday.
Angelo, a veteran UN civil servant, last served as executive representative of the secretary general in Sierra Leone and resident coordinator of the UN mission in Freetown from November 2005 to December 2007, it added in a statement.
MINURCAT, a police force created last September, is due to comprise 850 Chadian officers backing up 300 UN police officers, and falls under the protection of a EUFOR Chad-CAR operation made up of around 3,700 troops, with France providing the lion's share.
The police force will be tasked with monitoring camps for Darfur refugees and internally displaced persons.
On Monday, the European Union launched its long-awaited EUFOR Chad-CAR operation to help protect hundreds of thousands of refugees from strife-torn Darfur.
EUFOR, which was meant to deploy in November but was delayed by a shortfall in troops and equipment and a funding row, could be ready to begin work in earnest in March under a United Nations mandate.
The first troops are set to deploy this week.
About 234,000 Darfur refugees, along with 179,000 displaced eastern Chadians and 43,000 Central Africans also uprooted by strife and rebellion in the north of their country, are housed in camps in the region.
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