El Fasher, 25 May 2010 -- Today is celebrated as Africa Day. The date represents the annual commemoration on 25 May 1963 of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), when leaders of 30 of 32 independent African states signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Africa Day, earlier known as African Freedom Day or African Liberation Day, was founded during the first Conference of Independent African States, which attracted African leaders and political activists from various African countries, in Ghana on 15 April, 1958. Government representatives from eight independent African states attended the conference, which was the first Pan-African conference in the continent. The purpose was to annually mark the liberation movement’s progress and to symbolize the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.

In 2002, upon the establishment of the African Union (AU), the OAU’s successor, the name and date of Africa Day was retained. The theme for Africa Day 2010 is “Building and Sustaining Peace through Sports”

UNAMID as a joint AU-UN mission recognizes and identifies the efforts made by the continent’s political leadership to rid the continent of all threats of violence and shares the same conviction and determination.

On this year’s Africa Day, UNAMID Joint Special Representative Professor Ibrahim Gambari, urges all Africans to place a premium on peace and security as an indispensable condition for the social, economic and political development of the continent.