UN report demands political mission in Darfur
A joint UN-African Union record produced Monday on Sudan and Darfur needed a political objective to displace the peace procedure there, increasing fears by rights organizations that civilians could shed all protection.
The United Nations Protection Council will meet on March 26 to choose whether or not to slowly but surely withdraw by the end of October some 7,800 troops, known as the "Blue Helmets," from the United Nations-African Union Objective in Darfur (UNAMID).
The council was actually supposed to discuss the problem on Wednesday, however the session was suspended over concerns about the novel coronavirus.
"Found in Darfur, armed violence between rebel teams has declined, however the fundamental conflict drivers remain unresolved and exacerbate intercommunal tensions," the statement said. Civilian protection "may be the responsibility of Sudan," the report continued.
"A post-UNAMID mechanism may provide advisory and capacity-setting up support," but if a good mandate for the "physical safeguard of civilians" were requested, then this "would need a incredibly significant deployment, commensurate with how big is the region of operations."
Without such a mandate, "a post-UNAMID mechanism wouldn't normally be in a position to supply such protection and really should therefore not be likely to take action," the report added.
For the post-UNAMID period, starting in early November, the statement authors recommend "the establishment of a political and peacebuilding integrated support occurrence, headquartered in Khartoum."Kenneth Roth, the director of the NGO Human Privileges Watch, slammed the approach. "Darfur is not just like the rest of Sudan," he said.
"The UN Security Council should recognize that Darfur takes a a lot more gradual withdrawal and keep a UN secureness presence on the ground to actively protect civilians," he added.
When UNAMID last expired by the end of October 2019, the Reliability Council unanimously extended its mission for one time with unchanged numbers before end of March 2020.A joint peace force with the African Union, UNAMID has been deployed in Darfur, in western Sudan, since 2007 and has deployed up to 16,000 peacekeepers.
In line with the UN, the conflict in Darfur among Sudanese forces and ethnic minority rebels who actually consider themselves marginalized by the central government, possesses led to about 300,000 deaths and a lot more than 2.5 million displaced persons since 2003.
