Dutch to airlift 154 Rwandan troops to Darfur

ADDIS ABABA, Aug 10 (Reuters) – The Netherlands will begin on Saturday to fly 154 Rwandan troops to Sudan’s Darfur region to serve as a protection force for African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors, the Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia said on Tuesday.

“The Rwandan troops will be airlifted to Darfur beginning Saturday. We consider getting the Rwandan troops on the ground to be very urgent,” Ambassador Rob Bermaas told Reuters.

“The airlift of the 154 Rwandan troops is on the basis of the offer of the government of the Netherlands to the African Union, which includes financing the whole operation (the airlift),” Bermaas added.

The Netherlands announced last week it would fund a mission to fly 360 Rwandan and Nigerian AU troops to Darfur to monitor a shaky truce between rebels and the Khartoum government.

It will be the first foreign deployment of troops in Darfur, where the United Nations says the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

It has not yet been decided when the Nigerian forces would be sent to Darfur, an area the size of France.

The 53-member AU has also said it wants to boost the number of troops to Darfur to 2,000 and broaden the original mandate of the AU force to including a peacekeeping role as well as protecting the ceasefire observers.

However, that plan awaits approval by the chairman of the AU’s security body, the Peace and Security Council.

No agreement has been reached with Sudan over the deployment of a much larger force.

Sudan has objected to any possibility AU troops might be used as peacekeepers.

Sudan said it has no problem with African ceasefire observers or African troops to protect those observers, but that peacekeeping is its responsibility.

The United Nations says 50,000 people have been killed and at least a million more displaced since two rebel groups took up arms against the government in February last year.