UNAMID missing a beat

The UN peacekeeping force for Darfur, UNAMID, entered into existence on January 1st of this year but has experienced a number of setbacks. The government has insisted that the composition be primarily African and many of the 7,000 strong African Union soldiers already in Darfur have changed their berets from AU green to UN blue to fill the ranks of the 27,000 strong force.

However that is still a far cry from the target number of 27,000. So far, very few forces have arrived to provide logistical and civilian support to this unit that now stands at around 9,000. See their website for more details. http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unamid/

The following article also says a lot about the current situation in terms of UN deployments. It does not reflect the security situation on the ground however which seems to be morphing from a proxy war into an open international conflict between Chad and Sudan. More on that later.

Sweden and Norway cancel plans to send troops to Darfur ©2008 AFP

Sweden and Norway said Wednesday they had withdrawn their offer of a joint force of 400 troops to be sent to Darfur as part of a United Nations-African Union mission due to Sudanese opposition. "Norway and Sweden have long been preparing to support the UN effort in Darfur. We therefore regret that we are forced to withdraw our offer of an engineering unit to UNAMID," the foreign ministers of Sweden and Norway, Carl Bildt and Jonas Gahr Stoere, said in a statement. The unit was to help build up Darfur's infrastructure in the early stages of the mission.

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