Ethiopia finalizes logistical preparations for Darfur peacekeepers

By Tesfa-alem Tekle

March 11,2008(ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia today said it has finalized and made ready the necessary logistics necessary for its peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Sudanese Darfur region.

Since September 2007, following the visit of the Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir to Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zinawi agreed to send 5000 peacekeeping troops to participate in the Hybrid Operation for the five-year war-torn Darfur region.

“Ethiopia has been giving high attention for the logistical preparations to the Ethiopian peace keeping force to be deployed in Darfur” Logistics and Transport head under the ministry of Defence Brigadier General Nugusse lemma said on Tuesday.

According to the official, the necessary logistics are handed over to the Ethiopian peace force.

“Necessary transport, medical, food and sheltering logistics, which enable the mission to successfully accomplished are handed over to the peace force” he said.

The African Union Peace and Security Council (AU-PSC) reiterated in a meeting held early this month that Egyptian and Ethiopian troops would be deployed in Sudan’s Darfur region during the current March.

Egypt and Ethiopia will send a battalion, numbering 850 troops each, as the first batch of their contribution to the UN-AU Joint African Peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council last month unanimously approved the 26,000-strong mission, which, if fully deployed, would be the world’s largest operation of its kind, to help end four years of rape and slaughter in the vast Sudanese desert region.

The force is expected to be made up mostly of peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops.

(ST)