Number of UNIFIL reduced in South Lebanon

The official spokesman for the UN Interim forces working in South Lebanon UNIFIL Timor Goksil said that the reduction of these forces will practically start in June this year.

In a statement to the Lebanese daily Assafir issued on Wednesday, the UN official said that the reduction will include all units while Fiji's contingent will leave ultimately with the end of the reduction operations by the end of this year.

He added that the reduction of UNIFIL will make imperative to introduce changes to areas where they are deployed in line with new developments and the number of soldiers especially at the border line drawn by the UN. He stressed that converting the UN forces into monitoring and observatory forces is a matter decided by the UN Security Council.

Worthy mentioning that number of the UN forces decreased after the pullout of the Finnish and Nepal's contingents from 4500 soldiers to 3600 soldiers and the final number to reach 2000 soldiers by the end of 2002.