A large and complex peacekeeping operation planned for Darfur will launch on time and could, within mere months, improve the security situation in the war-torn region of western Sudan, the mission head said.
Rodolphe Adada, chief of the UN and African Union (AU) joint mission to Darfur (UNAMID), said contributing nations have already committed more than the 26,000 required troops for the force, and he expects the peacekeepers to deploy next month.
"That won't mean we'll have all the elements of the force on the ground, but we'll be operational," he said on Sunday.
The joint mission will take over from an AU force of 7,000 in Darfur and Adada said he expected to begin operating with some 10,000 troops, including the African contingents already in place.
He said UNAMID would meet the deadline set by the UN Security Council to replace the AU by Dec. 31.
"Hopefully, we'll be in full gear by March," Adada said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Darfur last week to press for an end to the conflict, has said that UNAMID faces "enormously complex" logistical challenges. And some observers are skeptical such a large force will manage to deploy on time.
Darfur civilians have grown increasingly frustrated with the AU's lack of protection since it initially came in June 2004. They hope the new, hybrid UN-AU force's ability to secure refugee camps and towns will be a key factor to bring back stability.
One of the main weaknesses of the AU's current force is a mandate more focused on monitoring violence than preventing it. Adada said UNAMID's rules of engagement, under which troops are allowed to shoot, will provide for stronger protection.
The resolution that created UNAMID includes some clauses under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter -- which allows for the strongest use of force -- and UN diplomats say the mission's rules of engagement should be signed on Sept. 21 when the UN Assembly General gathers.
The deployment will come as a new peace conference between Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese government launches on Oct. 27 in Libya. At least one leading rebel chief, Abdel Wahid Elnur, has said he would refuse to take part in peace negotiations before UN peacekeepers are fully in place.
The previous peace deal, signed in May last year between one rebel group and the Sudanese central government, is viewed as largely ineffective at reducing violence in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died since fighting began four years ago.
Adada said 6,000 police and troops would immediately focus on pacifying Darfur's refugee camps, where more than one-third of the population now live.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS