African Union extends Darfur force to end of 2006

July 2, 2006 (BANJUL) — The African Union agreed on Sunday to a U.N. request to extend the mandate of its military mission in Sudan’s violent Darfur region by three months until the end of 2006, its chairman Denis Sassou Nguesso said.

The overstretched AU force had wanted to hand over to the United Nations when its mandate expired on Sept. 30. But Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir refuses to allow U.N. troops on Sudanese soil.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked AU leaders at a weekend summit to extend their mission in Darfur, where it is trying to provide security for some of the 2.5 million people living in camps after being displaced by three years of murder, rape and pillage.

“On the request of the secretary general, the African Union will continue to fulfil its mission until the end of the year,” said Congo Republic president Sassou Nguesso, who holds the revolving AU presidency.

Earlier Annan met Bashir on the fringes of the summit in Gambia, but failed to persuade him to allow U.N. troops into Darfur, whose crisis he called “one of the worst nightmares in recent history.”

But Annan said he still expected U.N. troops to be deployed there eventually.

(Reuters)