The Peace and Security Council of the African Union will meet on Monday to discuss the deployment of an African peacekeeping force in the Darfur region of western Sudan, officials at AU headquarters said.
”The AU Peace and Security Council will meet this afternoon to discuss the issue of deploying a peacekeeping force in Darfur,” said Sam Ibok, AU’s director for peace and security department.
”We expect to make a decision today [Monday]” whether to transform a 300-strong ceasefire observer mission in Darfur into a peacekeeping force, he said.
The observer mission has not yet been deployed in Sudan.
”We have not officially informed the Sudanese government of this plan but we shall inform it depending the council’s decision today,[Monday]” Ibok added.
Ibok said the government in Khartoum was ”not opposed to an African force”, and Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail had said that the government ”will look into it when they officially receive communication from the AU”.
But he recalled that Khartoum was against the idea of sending troops from the United States or other western countries to Sudan.
The United Nations estimated that as many as 50 000 people have been killed since Sudanese army forces and its allied Janjaweed militia cracked down on a rebellion by minority tribes which erupted in Darfur in February 2003.
Another 1,2-million people have fled their homes in Sudan and up to 200 000 more have been settled in makeshift camps in eastern Chad, the UN says. ‒ Sapa-AFP