Rwanda sends more troops to bolster Darfur peacekeeping force

Sept 30, 2005 (KIGALI) — The first 80 of 538 additional Rwandan troops heading for a peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s troubled western region of Darfur left Friday aboard U.S. military transports, a senior official said.

They join 1,212 Rwandan soldiers already in Darfur as part of what will be a 7,500-strong African Union peacekeeping force monitoring a fragile cease-fire between government and rebel forces.

Soldiers to be replaced are expected in Kigali before the end of next week.

The United States was running the flights as part of a NATO support mission. It will take eight days to fly all 538 Rwandan troops to the mission, said Lt. Col. Charles Karamba of the Rwanda Defense Forces.

“When this mission is completed, we will have 1,750 soldiers in Darfur,” Karamba said.

The United States, European Union and individual European countries were also helping to finance the AU peacekeeping mission.

Darfur’s conflict erupted in February 2003 when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia committed wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans.

(AP/ST)