Africans mull Darfur force as thousands march in Khartoum
NAIROBI, Aug 4 (AFP) — The African Union said it may send a 2,000-strong peacekeeping force to the war-ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur, as tens of thousands marched through Khartoum to warn foreign armies not to intervene in the crisis.
Aid agencies meanwhile said the misery of over one million victims of continuing violence in the western region of Sudan was likely to be worsened by the coming rainy season.
With Sudan’s army vowing to fight “the enemies of the Sudan on land, sea and air,” over Darfur, tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters marched on UN offices in Khartoum to show their opposition to any outside intervention.
They shouted “Allah o Akbar (God Is Greatest)” and waved banners in English and Arabic proclaiming “Darfur Is the Graveyard of US” and “No to Foreign Intervention”.
The AU said it was considering bolstering what was planned to be a 300-strong contingent to protect ceasefire observers and monitors, deploying instead a 2,000-man mission.
Nigeria will dispatch one battalion to join the force, Nigerian Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji told AFP, but added when had yet to be decided because the AU was still working on logistics.
The United Nations has called the situation in Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
On Friday the UN Security Council passed a resolution giving Khartoum 30 days to disarm the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia accused of committing atrocities against civilians there.
Efforts by the AU to bring the warring parties in Darfur to peace talks in Addis Ababa in mid-July failed when the two rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement — refused to take part until the Sudanese government demilitarized the Janjaweed and brought alleged war criminals to book.
An AU spokesman, Adam Thiam, said from Nairobi that talks could begin by the end of the month, while the Sudanese junior foreign minister said Sudan would consider new talks but only without conditions.
“We are ready to renew negotiations, but we will not accept any preconditions. If we accept preconditions, we won’t have anything to negotiate,” Tigani Saleh Fadel told AFP.
Thiam also said an AU commission to monitor the ceasefire for western Darfur said both rebels and the militia had violated the ceasefire a total of eight times in July.
In Darfur itself the flow of people fleeing the vast Darfur region, which lies in western Sudan on the border with Chad, had slowed but violence continued amid growing food needs, aid groups said.
“The situation varies,” said Carlo Piccinini of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “Some people continue to seek refuge in camps, others return home only to come back, while still others head home but leave their families behind in camp.”
Those needing food aid will almost double in the next few months, reaching two million in October against 1.2 million at present, according to the World Food Program.
Roger Winter, of the US development agency USAID, said he expected the region to need emergency relief for at least another 18 months, since farmers driven from their land could not sow this year’s crops.
Up to 50,000 people have died and 1.2 million have either fled their homes or been chased from them, according to the United Nations, since the rebels launched an uprising early last year against the Sudanese army.
The onset of the rainy season brings with it the threat of disease, heightened by the squalid living conditions in the camps that shelter Darfur’s displaced.
The ICRC fears outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera, malaria and meningitis.
The international community has been piling on the pressure in recent days to get the Sudanese government to take concrete action to end the suffering in Darfur.
The United States said on Monday Sudan must move immediately to meet the requirements of the Security Council resolution.
On Sunday French troops began to secure Chad’s border with Darfur as part of their mission to aid relief efforts to refugees.
The WFP has started airdropping food supplies to remote areas of Darfur and French troops stationed in Chad are airlifting relief aid to refugees on the Chad-Sudan border.