UNAMID: Action needed on Sudan Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:16:07 GMT

Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) peacekeepers in Sudan. The commander of the UN African-Union Peace Mission in Darfur has strongly criticizes the int'l community for the lack of peacekeepers. General Martin Luther Agwai said that more pressure should be applied to insurgents in the region and that rebel groups should be forced to sit down at the negotiating table to return peace to the country. The general emphasized that without sufficient support from UNAMID and the international community, no progress will be made and that he had been promised to head the largest peacekeeping force in Africa “on paper only”. Last month, Richard Williamson, US envoy to Darfur, censured the United Nations and Sudan for slow provision of the UNAMID peacekeeping force. Only 9,900 of the 26,000 soldiers and police officers promised at the beginning of the year have so far been deployed. "Unfortunately performance has not been acceptable to date," Williamson, now on a week-long visit to Sudan, commented on Tuesday. “But we have reason to be encouraged and hopeful that the pace of the past will be reversed and we will see substantially more peacekeepers here in Darfur.” At a news conference at the United Nations on Tuesday, Gen. Agwai said he hoped that the 80 percent deployment target would be reached by the yearend and estimated full deployment by the middle of next year. On Tuesday, UNAMID spokesman, Noureddine Mezni, said in Sudan that delays in deployment were due to poor infrastructure on the ground. He however noted that the last of an advance guard for two new Egyptian battalions arrived on Tuesday and that similar Ethiopian operation was due to start next week. This north African country, the largest on the continent, has been plagued by civil war since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003. The UN estimates that five years of conflict in Darfur have left 300,000 people dead. Sudan says no more than 10,000 have been killed. JC/BGH

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