France pledges support for Darfur refugees

ABECHE, Chad, Aug 6 (AFP) — French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie pledged Friday that Paris would support the more than one million refugees from Darfur “with all means necessary”, during a brief visit to a camp near border with Sudan’s troubled western region.

“We must be there as much as necessary and with all means necessary” to help the refugees who are fleeing the fighting in the Darfur, Alliot-Marie said.

But she said France should not be alone in the effort.

“We need very soon other European Union countries to pick up the baton,” she said.

Alliot-Marie flew in from Paris to Abeche, about 700 kilometers (400 miles) east of the Chad’s capital Ndjamena, and then traveled by helicopter to the refugee camp at Breidjing, which houses around 40,000 people.

The minister also met with some of the 200 French soldiers who last Sunday began to secure Chad’s border with the Darfur region as part of their mission to aid relief efforts to refugees.

French President Jacques Chirac last Friday ordered French troops already stationed in Chad to help with efforts to provide relief to the 1.2 million people driven from their homes by Sudanese troops and Arab militia known as Janjaweed.

Some 180,000 Sudanese have fled the fighting in Darfur to Chad, where their security is also precarious.

French troops are not to enter Sudanese territory where the government has warned it would send its army to repel any foreign military intervention.

The UN Security Council on July 30 passed a US-sponsored resolution giving Sudan 30 days to act or face international action, including the implicit threat of punitive sanctions.

The UN describes the Darfur crisis, in which it says up to 50,000 people have been slaughtered, as currently the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

It began with an anti-government revolt by two local groups of insurgents that was brutally suppressed by Sudanese troops and their militia allies, with the civilian population caught in the middle.