UN to send advance mission to Sudan-Chad border
Feb 12, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — The United Nations is preparing to send an advance mission to the Chad-Sudan border area ahead of a possible deployment of U.N. forces there, a U.N. official said on Monday.
A four-year civil war in Darfur spilled over into Chad and Central African Republic last year, forcing civilians near the border to flee to camps already crowded with hundreds of thousands of refugees that had earlier fled Darfur.
Both countries called for U.N. help and the Security Council in June asked the peacekeeping department to explore how to protect the camps.
A U.N. mission has already visited Chad and the Central African Republic this year to look at how many troops would be needed to protect civilians in the volatile region.
After briefing the African Union about the U.N. assessment of the border area, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, principle deputy special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said a new advance mission would look at logistics.
“The secretary general … with the consent of the Security Council is going to establish an advance mission to prepare for possible deployment of a multi-dimensional U.N. force at the border between Sudan and Chad,” Zerihoun told reporters at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, without specifying details.
“The primary objective of the U.N. force will be protection of civilians and responding to humanitarian challenges.”
A U.N. assessment mission sent in late November recommended against deploying a U.N. mission there until all parties agreed to stop fighting and begin negotiating a political solution.
Its report said peacekeepers could be attacked by rebel groups if they tried to stop cross-border activities and that a U.N. force “would be operating in the midst of continuing hostilities and would have no clear exit strategy.”
But the Security Council asked for a new assessment after its members complained during a closed-door session that the international community was doing too little to protect suffering civilians there, diplomats said.
A 7,500-strong AU mission in Darfur has struggled to maintain a shaky ceasefire but Khartoum rejects a U.N. takeover of the force. Both Chad and the Central African Republic have blamed Sudan for rebel attacks in their countries.
(Reuters)