{"id":29207,"date":"2026-03-19T09:36:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=29207"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:36:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:36:55","slug":"former-sa-diplomat-un-official-nicholas-haysom-dies-at-age-73","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/former-sa-diplomat-un-official-nicholas-haysom-dies-at-age-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Former SA diplomat, UN official Nicholas Haysom dies at age 73"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">Former South African (SA) diplomat and senior United Nations (UN) official Nicholas Haysom has died in New York at the age of 73.<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>His last role in the organisation was as the Secretary-General\u2019s special representative for South Sudan.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Haysom, who was affectionately known as \u201cFink\u201d, also served as chief legal and Constitutional advisor to the former President Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>He then became the Principal Adviser to the Mediator in the Sudan Peace Process until 2005.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>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.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>He also served as Director for Political, Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Affairs in the Executive Office of former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":29210,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-29207","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"His last role in the organisation was as the Secretary-General\u2019s special representative for South Sudan. \u00a0","published_date":"","news_description":"His last role in the organisation was as the Secretary-General\u2019s special representative for South Sudan. \u00a0","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29211,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29207\/revisions\/29211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}