French soldiers in Chad to help with Darfur aid

PARIS, July 31 (Reuters) – French soldiers in Chad will assist in an aid and security effort to help refugees from neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur region, President Jacques Chirac said.

France would make aircraft available in Chad, its former colony, to help transport humanitarian supplies, Chirac’s office said in a statement late on Friday.

“Due to the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Darfur and the urgent practical needs shown, the President of the Republic is calling for a mobilisation of French military means prepositioned in Chad,” the statement said.

The United Nations estimates the conflict has killed some 30,000 people in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

France has several hundred troops stationed in Chad and Chirac’s office said some 200 men would be deployed near the Sudanese border to help make the area secure. France would also make a team available to the African Union, which is deploying an observer team in the area.

Some 180,000 people have fled the Darfur region but around a million more people are displaced inside Darfur and aid groups estimate as many as 450,000 are within 100 km (60 miles) of the border to Chad and could easily end up there.

The U.N. Security Council voted on Friday for a resolution threatening to clamp sanctions on Sudan in 30 days if it does not disarm and prosecute marauding militia in Darfur.

Sudan rejected the move as “misguided”.

Darfur rebels accuse the government of arming the Arab Janjaweed to loot and burn African villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Sudan denies this and says it is improving security and distribution.