UN Darfur force 'too late for many'

Updated 09.39 Wed Aug 01 2007

Keywords: African Union, Human Rights Watch, peacekeeping force, United Nations, Sudan Darfur

Deploying a peacekeeping force to Darfur four years after the slaughter began "is too late for many people", according to Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations Security Council approved the 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for the Sudanese region to help end the years of fighting that has seen 200,000 people killed.

The UN force will replace the struggling 7,000-strong AU force now on the ground in Darfur by no later than December 31

"But we have to remember that there are well over four million people who are displaced and utterly dependant on the protection of the international community to have any prospect of continuing to lead normal lives or to return home," said Kenneth Roth, of Human Rights Watch.

The force, the first joint peacekeeping mission by the African Union and the UN, will replace the struggling 7,000-strong AU force now on the ground in Darfur by no later than December 31.

The council urged the AU-UN "hybrid" force to achieve "full operational capability and force strength as soon as possible thereafter."

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called it a "historic and unprecedented resolution" that will send "a clear and powerful signal" of the UN's commitment to help to the people of Darfur and the surrounding region "and close this tragic chapter in Sudan's history."

Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the AU-UN force will be the largest peacekeeping force in the world and said it will "offer the prospect of a new start for Darfur. That is our hope, that is our goal."

The conflict in Darfur began in February 2003 when ethnic African tribes rebelled against what they consider decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government.

Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge it denies.