Rwandan minister tells Sudan troops are to protect ceasefire team

KHARTOUM, Sept 1 (AFP) — Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande assured Sudan’s president on Wednesday that Rwandan troops in the troubled Darfur region were there to protect officials of the African Union ceasefire commission and not to police the region.

Murigande told reporters that this assurance was made in a letter he handed to Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir from his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kigame clarifying the nature of the mission of Rwandan troops.

Rwanda has deployed 150 troops in Darfur, half of the 300-strong force deployed in the war-torn region to protect AU observers monitoring a ceasefire between Sudanese government forces and rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.

Sudanese media has recently speculated on the Rwandans’ mission, suggesting a hidden agenda in the region. The press also published a series of stories denouncing the Rwandans as AIDS carriers and agents of ethnic cleansing.

Writing in the daily newspaper Al-Rai Al-Am on August 19, Rashed Abderrahim warned against the spread of the HIV virus which the author said Rwandan soldiers could be carrying and considered the troops could “carry on in Sudan their experience of ethnic cleansing”.