Australian police to join UN peacekeepers in Sudan

Mar 6, 2006 (SYDNEY) — Ten Australian federal policemen headed Monday to Sudan to join a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country’s south.

Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the officers would help monitor a peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between Sudan’s north and south.

The officers would not be sent to Sudan’s Darfur region, which has been wracked by ethnic tension and fighting between African rebels and Arab militias loyal to the government. Keelty said the 10-strong team would be replaced every six months, over an 18-month period.

The U.N. Mission in Sudan was set up to monitor and support the implementation of the peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the Khartoum government in January 2005.

(ST/AP)