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MP: African Union summit to focus on situation in South Sudan

MOSCOW, December 25. /ITAR-TASS/. The situation in South Sudan will be one of the key issues at the summit of the African Union (AU) due to take place in the Ethiopian capital in late 2014, Russian presidential special envoy for African countries Mikhail Margelov said.

Margelov, who is also Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, will represent Russia at the summit.

“We know what has happened in South Sudan and we exert maximum effort to cooperate with the U.N. and the African Union,” he said.

“At the end of January the AU summit will take place in Addis Ababa. I’ll represent Russia at the summit. I believe that the situation in South Sudan will be a basic topic at the summit in parallel with the situations in the Central African Republic, Mali and Somali,” the Russian legislator said.

According to official data, over 10 days 500 people were killed during the armed conflict in South Sudan.

However, U.N. representatives give other figures. A total of 45,000 people found shelter at U.N. bases. At least 80,000 people left their homes.