EU approves deployment of Darfur force in Chad and CAR
October 15, 2007 (LUXEMBOURG) — European Union foreign ministers gave their final approval Monday to deploy a 3,000-strong E.U. peacekeeping force to help refugees and the displaced along Darfur’s borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.
The E.U. ministers also appealed to northern and southern Sudanese political factions to stick to a 2005 peace pact, fearing a collapse of the delicate treaty in that unrelated Sudanese conflict could lead to new civil war complicating international efforts to end the Darfur crisis.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the task of the E.U. force will be to improve security and make it easier for aid groups to do their work in the camps that border Sudan’s Darfur region.
“It is a reconstruction mission, a development mission and a humanitarian one,” Kouchner told reporters. “Security needs to be assured” for the refugees, he said, but said the mission “would not secure the border areas.”
U.N. officials estimate around 3 million people have been uprooted by conflicts in the region, including the fighting in Darfur and unrelated rebellions in Chad and the Central African Republic. The majority – some 2.25 million – are Darfuris displaced within Darfur.
Around half of the E.U. force would be French. Kouchner said other E.U. nations like Poland and Spain came forward at the E.U. talks on Monday to pledge troops and other hardware like planes needed to support the E.U. mission. Ireland, Sweden, Poland and Belgium were expected to provide between 80 to 300 troops each, E.U. officials said.
The E.U. mission would be in addition to a planned 26,000-member joint African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force which is to deploy in Darfur itself. The E.U. force could start deploying “in the first few weeks of November,” Kouchner said.
He said the force, which will be run from a military operations center near Paris, has already received pledges of over 2,500 troops from several E.U. nations.
The E.U. force will also be supported by new E.U. aid worth some EUR50 million, which will be used to train a U.N. police force which would be responsible for security inside the refugee camps. The E.U. force would maintain security around the camps, officials have said.
Aid groups urged the E.U. earlier this week to ensure the force remains impartial. They said the force shouldn’t be seen to be dominated by French soldiers, saying that would make it difficult for it to work effectively.
France already has troops in the region supporting Chad’s government, which is facing its own rebellion, leading some aid workers to question whether the force will be seen as neutral.
The E.U. foreign ministers said in a statement their mission would be “conducted with full independence, impartiality and neutrality.” They also invited other non-E.U. nations to participate in their mission.
(AP)