Former South African (SA) diplomat and senior United Nations (UN) official Nicholas Haysom has died in New York at the age of 73.
His last role in the organisation was as the Secretary-General’s special representative for South Sudan.
Haysom, who was affectionately known as “Fink”, also served as chief legal and Constitutional advisor to the former President Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.
Haysom had a storied career, serving in the first democratically elected South African government in the mid-1990s before serving as chair of the committee negotiating constitutional issues in the Burundi Peace Process under the facilitation of Mandela until 2002.
He then became the Principal Adviser to the Mediator in the Sudan Peace Process until 2005.
He served in the UN Mission in Iraq, as Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan and Somalia, as Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, and later head of the UN Mission in South Sudan- his last official role.
He also served as Director for Political, Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Affairs in the Executive Office of former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
–SABC–
