BBC NEWS
Fresh warnings of Darfur disaster Aid agencies and the EU have warned Darfur is teetering on the brink of catastrophe and have called for urgent efforts to bolster the peace process. The warnings came ahead of a major international conference on Darfur in Brussels on Tuesday. The aid agencies said Western donors were failing African Union soldiers in Darfur who depend on their funds. A Darfur peace deal was signed two months ago but correspondents say the security situation has got worse. Most of Darfur's two million displaced people have rejected the deal and rebel movements continue to fight one another, says the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum. Troops 'set up to fail' In their statement, the eight agencies - which include Oxfam, Care International, Islamic Relief and Oxfam International - say the 7,000 AU soldiers in Darfur are being set up to fail. While an enormous amount of energy is being spent debating what will happen in six months' time, no-one seems to have noticed that people are still being killed today Denis Caillaux Care International The soldiers would like to expand their mission and increase their capabilities, says our correspondent, but Western donors refuse to release funds, and so instead they lurch from crisis to crisis. The agencies accuse donors of treating Darfur's people like a bargaining chip, and say $300m (£165m) is urgently needed to fund the AU mission until the end of the year. The aid agencies' plea comes as some 70 delegations prepare to attend a large conference on Darfur in Brussels on Tuesday. International efforts to address the conflict have been hampered because the AU wants to pull out by the end of September but the Sudanese government is refusing to allow a replacement UN force to take over. But aid agencies say the international community should focus on funding the existing AU mission now rather than concentrating on trying to secure agreement on the transfer of the AU mission to the UN. "While an enormous amount of energy is being spent debating what will happen in six months' time, no-one seems to have noticed that people are still being killed today," said Denis Caillaux of Care International. Genocide warning The EU representative to Sudan also spoke out ahead of the conference, warning of the potential for greater conflict - or even genocide - in Darfur. "If the African Union says: 'Sorry, we have to finish now, we cannot run this operation,' we lose the last internationals who are following the situation - in the camps, around the camps, who are giving at least a minimum protection to these refugees," Pekka Haavisto told the BBC. "I think internationally we cannot afford this... because then we are very close to the possible scenarios of genocide, or Rwanda scenarios, if you don't have any organised international force on the ground." Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5189880.stm Published: 2006/07/18 07:46:15 GMT © BBC MMVI ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/TISQkA/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
