From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2008 - 11:44:35 EDT
African agencies slam peacekeeping efforts in Sudan
Mon July 28, 2008
A coalition of mainly African aid agencies has
strongly criticised the joint African and UN peacekeeping mission in
Sudan's Darfur region.
The Darfur Consortium says the mission is too small, inadequately equipped and failing to protect civilians.
The joint United Nations, African Union mission in Darfur, or UNAMID, began operations six months ago.
The highly critical new report said the force had only deployed 9,000 of the 26,000 soldiers promised.
Most of the troops came from an earlier, underfunded solely African
force and the hope was that UN involvement would improve logistics.
But the new report says UNAMID is still critically short of basic equipment such as helicopters and armoured vehicles.
But force commander Martin Luther Agwai says there were unrealistic expectations for the force given the conditions in Darfur.
"For anybody to expect that 8,000 troops and under 2,000 policemen
would police an area as big as France, that person should be
daydreaming," he said.
"With no roads, no means of communication and you expect UNIMAD forces to be everywhere, I think is too much of an expectation."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/28/2316994.htm?section=justin
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