African peacekeepers in Darfur to run out of funds within 4 months

(ADDIS ABABA) — The African Union will run out of money for its peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s troubled region of Darfur within four months unless it finds more funding, a senior AU official said Friday.

The European Union’s injection of EUR70 million ($84 million) Friday into the mission’s operations helps bridge its shortfall of $135 million, but the African Union continues to struggle to run its peacekeeping operation in Sudan despite pledges made in May to give the mission an additional $200 million, said Said Djinnit, the AU Peace and Security Commissioner.

“As of today we have only resources in cash to maintain the mission to the end of March, very early April,” Djinnit told journalists. “We are concerned about this because we have to maintain the mission and you have to have resources of you want to maintain the mission.”

The 7,000-strong force needs $465 million a year to operate, but so far they only received $330 million, Djinnit said.

“In January important decisions should be taken in terms of providing resources to enable the mission to be maintained for the agreed timeframe or in terms of discussing other options,” he said.

Thursday, an AU assessment mission, headed by Baba Gana Kingibe, the organization’s special envoy to Sudan, said that the presence of AU troops in Darfur had helped reduce violations of a fragile cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebels.

The group, however, qualified that, saying the security situation didn’t allow for those made homeless or refugees by the more than two year-old conflict to return to their homes.

The U.N. estimates that 180,000 people have died, mainly through famine and disease, and several million more have either fled into neighboring Chad or been displaced inside Sudan since the 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)