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NATO agrees to airlift African Union troops to Sudan's Darfur region
NATO defence ministers meeting Thursday plan to come to the aid of the African Union's peacekeeping operation in Darfur with an offer to ferry 5,000 additional African troops to the region of western Sudan. The ministers, however, will likely stress that the African Union remains in charge of the peacekeeping operation.The Darfur mission would be NATO's first in Africa. The African Union - a 53-member organization that African countries use to address problems on that continent - asked NATO in April to help bring more of African troops into the remote region. The African Union currently has 2,700 or so peacekeepers in Darfur, site of one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes. It wants to deploy another 5,000 - ideally before next month's start of the rainy season - but needs aircraft to send them into the region, which is the size of France. At least some of those additional troops will be flown in by a separate European Union mission, with EU ministers are expected to approve next week. Washington had hoped for a NATO-commanded airlift operation, but France insisted the EU take charge. As a result, the two will run "side-by-side" airlift operations while taking pains to avoid wasteful duplication, said a NATO official. The United States plans to fly Rwandan troops to Darfur as part the alliance airlift. France will fly Senegalese troops under the EU flag. South Africa and Nigeria have also asked for help to fly troops to western Sudan. Officials said NATO will only fly peacekeepers to Darfur, provide a some support staff to help the African Union run a headquarters but has made no commitment on rotating troops. Only Canada has expressed a readiness to provide helicopters to fly peacekeepers within Darfur. Violence has raged in Darfur for more than a year, mostly between black Africans and ethnic Arab militiamen called the Janjaweed aligned with the Sudanese government. The government and the Janjaweed have been accused of committing wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans in which 180,000 people have died and millions have fled to refugee camps. Posted by: ed 2005-06-09 |
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