Lena Sundh, the newly appointed head of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal) arrived in Kathmandu to assume her duty on Monday.

On her arrival at the Kathmandu airport in the afternoon, Sundh said she was “pleased to be in Nepal at this historical period, when the protection of human rights is essential in the peace process”.

She commenced her duties as the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal immediately after her arrival in Kathmandu, the OHCHR office said. UN human rights high commissioner Louise Arbour had appointed her representative to Nepal on October 18.

Sundh, a Swedish national, is a conflict management expert and has been involved in peacekeeping during her 30-year international career. She worked at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1976 and has served in Thailand, Namibia, Morocco, and at the United Nations in Geneva and New York. She was the ambassador of Sweden to Angola from 1995 to 2000. She has also served as director at the Departments of African Affairs and of Global Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sweden.

She has worked in Cambodia with the UNHCR and was a member of the UN Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions. Most recently, Sundh was appointed as the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in this position was the Deputy Head of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC.