AU welcomes Sudan approval to deploy Canadian armored carriers

Nov 15, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan approved on Tuesday the deployment of 70 Canadian armored personnel carriers in the troubled western Sudan region of Darfur to help peacekeepers there, after U.S. officials criticised the Khartoum government of holding up the move.

The APCs are aimed at helping some 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur who have been unable to stem an increase in violence because they lack the means for rapid movement and other hardware and don’t have enough troops.

Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim announced the approval in a statement published Tuesday in the Al-Adwaa and al-Rai al-Amm newspapers, underlining “the Sudanese government’s commitment to facilitate the AU mission in Darfur to bring peace to the region.”

An African Union spokesman in Khartoum, Noureddine Mezni, welcomed the approval, saying the 70 APCs being donated by Canada were expected to reach Darfur in five weeks. Some of them will be deployed in el-Fasher, the capital of northern Darfur, and in Nyala town in the southern part of the region, he said.

Thirty-five other Canadian APCs have already been approved for deployment in Darfur, but the remaining 70 were delayed. Earlier this month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi E. Frazer told a House subcommittee that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was responsible for the holdup, bringing sharp criticism from congressmembers.

Ibrahim appealed to donor nations to help in improving the airports in Darfur which cannot handle heavy planes bringing needed equipment and gear to the AU troops.

The United Nations estimates that 180,000 people have died, mainly through famine and disease. Several million more have either fled into neighboring Chad or been displaced inside Sudan. The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when two African rebel groups took up arms against the Sudanese government amid accusations of repression and unfair distribution of wealth.

(AP/ST)