Annan to co-chair Darfur donors’ meeting in Addis Ababa

UNITED NATIONS, May 13, 2005 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will co-chair a high-level donors’ meeting on May 26 in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to bolster the African Union (AU) mission in Sudan’s Darfur region, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday.

Another chairperson of the meeting will be the head of the African Union’s Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare.

The Addis Ababa conference is intended to provide as much international support as possible for the African Union mission on the ground in Darfur, she said.

She noted that the Security Council this week called for increased support for that mission, and she said it was “the only game in town” to deal with the suffering of the people of Darfur.

Earlier this year, another donors’ conference was held in Oslo, Norway, to seek humanitarian assistance for Sudan.

The African Union currently has some 3,000 truce monitors in Darfur, where a conflict between the government and rebels erupted in February 2003. The AU, however, has not expanded the mission’s operation zone to the entire region because of lack of resources.