Sudan under pressure to accept UN Darfur mission

July 14, 2006 (BRUSSELS) — World powers will next week press Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur amid reports of increasing violence in the province.

Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million people forced into camps during three years of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur, in lawless western Sudan.

A conference in Brussels on Tuesday attended by the European Union, the United States and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will urge Sudan to allow a U.N. mission to replace an ill-equipped and over-extended African Union force in an attempt to stop the violence.

“A U.N. operation is the only viable and realistic option in Darfur in the long term,” the European Union will say on the eve of the meeting according to a draft declaration obtained by Reuters.

Tuesday’s conference will urge Sudanese rebels to sign a peace deal reached in May between the Khartoum government and one of the main rebel factions.

The meeting will also seek ways to help finance the African Union’s 7,000-strong mission until it is replaced by U.N. troops, EU officials said.

The African Union wanted to hand over to the United Nations at the end of September but decided earlier this month to extend its mission for three more months because of Sudan’s opposition to any U.N. deployment.

Sudan has likened a U.N. military presence to a Western invasion. Analysts say Khartoum fears U.N. soldiers would arrest any official or militia leader likely to be indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

The U.N.’s top envoy in the region, Jan Pronk, said earlier this week that tribal tensions were worsening despite the peace deal he helped broker in May.

(Reuters)