The United Nation's humanitarian chief warned on Tuesday of a catastrophic situation developing in Darfur unless international donors act soon to bolster a beleaguered African peacekeeping force in the Sudanese province. “We either get good news in the next few weeks, or we have catastrophic news later,” Jan Egeland told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. He said a major international conference would be held in June somewhere in Europe in an effort to boost humanitarian aid and assistance for the peacekeepers. Egeland was in Brussels to meet top officials at NATO and the European Union. He said military powers should provide more resources to improve transport, communications, logistics, training and planning for the African peacekeepers. “They represent hardware which is very valuable,” he said.
However, he warned against deploying a Western military force, as some politicians in the United States have suggested. “We have to be careful to calibrate the humanitarian and security response so it doesn't provoke a reaction,” Egeland said. “I'd like to see the African Union ( AU) and the UN play the lead role there, NATO and other organizations can complement and very usefully complement our efforts.”
A 7,300-strong AU force in place in Darfur has been largely unable to halt violence despite a May 5 peace deal designed to end fighting that has killed nearly 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.
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