AU meeting on Darfur handover to UN postponed
Feb 28, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — A meeting of African Union members on whether to hand over the AU’s mission in Sudan’s Darfur region to the United Nations has been postponed until March 10, an AU spokesman said on Tuesday.
“It was postponed to give ample time for all those concerned in the Darfur crisis to attend,” AU spokesman Assane Ba said, without elaborating.
The AU meeting to make a final decision on a handover in Darfur was originally due to take place on Friday.
About 7,000 AU soldiers are trying to stop escalating violence in Darfur, a desert region about the size of France, with a mandate to monitor ceasefire violations but limited powers to intervene.
However, the AU said in January money for the peacekeeping mission, which costs $17 million a month to maintain, was running out.
The United Nations has already started contingency planning for a takeover, but Security Council members say a resolution should come only after AU foreign ministers make a decision on whether to turn over the mission.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million herded into camps during more than three years of fighting between rebels and government-allied militias in remote Darfur.
(Reuters)