African Union Darfur mission must expand – Oxfam

LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – The African Union’s mission in Sudan’s Darfur region is understaffed, poorly financed and ill-equipped to cope with the scale of the crisis, international aid agency Oxfam said on Monday.

Accusing the international community of failing to protect civilians in Darfur, Oxfam said nearly 2 million people made homeless by fighting were being harassed, robbed and violently attacked on a daily basis.

Only half of the 3,320 personnel promised by the African Union in October 2004 have arrived while their efforts have been hindered by shortages of funding and a lack of logistical support, Oxfam said.

“A fully expanded AU mission in Darfur — including additional troops, ceasefire monitors and civilian police — must be deployed at once,” Caroline Nursey, Oxfam’s regional director for the Horn of Africa, said in a statement.

The scale of the crisis in Darfur exceeds the capacity of the current AU mission to respond, Oxfam said.

After years of tribal conflict over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and forced almost 2 million people from their homes.

Oxfam said the visible presence of African Union ceasefire monitors and troops had helped to improve security in some parts of Darfur but the AU had not been able to reach some of the places where civilians were most under threat.

There were reports of women and girls being raped and beaten. Some died from their injuries, while armed militia still prowled the countryside in parts of the region, Oxfam said.