France mulling aid corridor through Chad for Darfur

May 29, 2007 (HAMBURG, Germany) — French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner wants to establish a corridor through Chad for humanitarian aid to help victims of violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

If President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the go-ahead, French troops in Chad could help set up the corridor, though they would need international assistance, said the spokesman, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Obviously we are very concerned about the humanitarian situation and we want to work on that with our partners in the G8 and the EU,” he said on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union and Asian foreign ministers in Hamburg.

The initiative from Kouchner, co-founder of a Nobel prize winning aid agency, comes as the United States signalled on Tuesday it plans to announce new sanctions against Sudan before working out a resolution in the United Nations in an intensified effort to end the bloodshed in Darfur.

Fighting by government-backed militias and rebel groups in the region of western Sudan that borders Chad has killed more than 200,000 people and driven about 2 million from their homes.

The United Nations has been trying to get Sudan’s government to end the violence that has devastated Darfur since 2003.

(Reuters)