UN Darfur mission to begin
UN to begin mission in Darfur, albeit with 19,000 less staff than planned
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Monday, 31, Dec 2007 12:44
The UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur is set to begin, six months after being approved by the security council.
But the handover from the African Union (AU) will be largely ceremonial, with AU troops merely exchanging their green berets for the blue of the UN peacekeepers.
AU soldiers will make up about 7,000 of the 9,000-strong mission, which is about a third of its intended size.
The UN hopes to have 20,000 peacekeepers and 6,000 police and civilian workers in place in the troubled Sudanese region within the coming months.
When fully deployed, the UN Mission in Darfur (Unamid) will become the world's largest peacekeeping force.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has accused the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum of delaying the mission, while member states have come under fire for failing to deliver the hardware necessary for its success.
Since the current Darfur conflict began in 2003, more than 200,000 people are thought to have been killed and 2.2 million forced to flee their homes.
The UN says Darfur is one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, which the overstretched AU mission has struggled to contain.
More than 50 African troops have died since 2003, including 12 who were killed in the razing of the Haskanita base by rebel groups earlier this year.
As well as Khartoum and fractious rebels that refuse to acknowledge peace talks, Unamid will also have to contend with recent alleged incursions by Chadian troops into Darfur itself.