Some 1,440 military personnel and 240 police components have been reduced in line with the newly adopted UN Security Council Resolution (2363).

“Since the beginning of the reconfiguration process, two battalions of the mission’s military components, a Nigerian and Pakistani, each with 720 personnel, have been reduced,” Ashraf Eissa, spokesperson of UNAMID’s Joint Special Representative (JSR), said at a press conference.

“Two police units, a Bangladesh and a Senegalese, each with 120 personnel, have also been reduced,” he added.

He confirmed that the ongoing Phase 1 of the reconfiguration process is expected to be completed by January 2018.

“At the end of Phase 1, we will be reducing our authorized ceiling for uniformed personnel to 11,395 military and 2,888 police,” he added.

Phase 2 involves a further reduction of military personnel to 8,735 and police personnel to 2,500 by June 30, 2018, noted Eissa, adding that by the end of January 2018, there will be a review of Phase 1, following which Phase 2 shall commence.

In the meantime, the spokesperson stated that the mission has closed 11 team sites across Darfur according to the timelines provided by the UN headquarters in New York and the Security Council.

The UN Security Council has recently adopted Resolution (2363) on reconfiguration of the UNAMID in two phases, each lasts six months.

The UNAMID is considered the second biggest peacekeeping mission in the world, after the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2008, the UNAMID was deployed in Darfur, a region that has been witnessing military clashes between the Sudanese army and the rebels since 2003.

UN statistics shows that the clashes have left 300,000 dead and displaced around 2.5 million others.