Algeria, Egypt and Libya ready to send troops to Darfur: league official

CAIRO, Aug 15 (AFP) — Algeria, Egypt and Libya informed the Arab League they were ready to send armed troops to Sudan’s crisis-ridden region of Darfur, an official from the pan-Arab body said Sunday.

Algeria, Egypt and Libya “informed the committee of Arab foreign ministers gathered in Cairo on August 8 to discuss Darfur that they would dispatch troops as part of the Africa Union contingent,” said Samir Hosni, in charge of the Darfur issue at the League said.

Algeria’s charge d’affaires in Cairo Menawer Rabiai told AFP he could not confirm this information.

During that meeting, the foreign ministers had called on countries belonging both to the African Union (AU) and the Arab League to contribute troops to the force tasked with protecting observers monitoring a ceasefire in Darfur.

The first batch of 150 Rwandan soldiers from the AU has arrived in Sudan and is due to be followed later this month by another 150 troops from Nigeria.

The Khartoum authorities have welcome the troops but have warned against any plan to broaden the protection force into a larger peacekeeping mission.

Meanwhile representatives of 10 Arab professional unions, including doctors, journalists, engineers and artists, as well as members of the Arab National Congress and the Muslim National Congress, were to leave Cairo late Sunday for a week-long visit to Darfur.

They would be making a report on their mission to the United Nations, a spokesman for the doctors’ union, whose president Abdelmoneim Abul-Futh is heading the party, told AFP.