Denmark welcomes UN resolution on Darfur

COPENHAGEN, April 1 (AFP) — Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller welcomed on Friday the UN agreement to try Darfur war criminals at the International Criminal Court.

“It is a very significant step on the road to installing the international criminal court as a permanent criminal court,” he said in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council voted 11-0 to approve the trials late on Thursday, two months after an international enquiry found evidence of war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, where an estimated 300,000 have died in two years of violence.

The move clears the way for the Hague-based court to prosecute those behind the murder, rape and pillaging in the vast Darfur region, after weeks of tense diplomatic haggling over how to bring the guilty to justice.

Moeller also said that Denmark, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, would send 45 soldiers to Sudan to help set up headquarters for a 10,000 strong UN multinational force in Sudan.