African Union military chief wants more troops in Darfur
Sudan, Politics, 5/11/2006

A report today by Sudan Vision said that the African Union troop commander has called for increasing significantly the number of African union forces to be able to deal with the Darfur security issues.

The report quoted the commander of the African Union troops, General Collins Ihekire saying "If we don't have sufficient troops, we cannot be everywhere.. "So what we do now is, where we cannot have presence on 24-hour basis we just go on patrols to make sure that we cover that area also. But definitely we need increased troops level to cover everywhere. I keep citing example of Liberia having 15,000 troops and it's about a quarter the size of Darfur. So if we are to use that standard, how many will we need? But we are not asking for that. We are saying give us 15,000 troops."

This would be in line with Sudan government demands of an African Union force that is not UN affiliated, which it said it opposes.

Meantime, the report noted that "Supporters of a rebel chief, Abdulwahed al-Nur, have signaled their intention to resume fighting from their bases in Darfur."

Yesterday US Department Of State spokesman Sean McCormack was asked about Minni Menawi, the head of the rebel movement wanting to freeze the Abuja peace agreement. McCormack said he was unaware of the report. However, Sudan Vision reported today that "Minawi in a telephone statement announced their readiness to implement the Darfur peace agreement, calling on factions that did not sign DPA to join the peace forces to bring stability to Darfur."

Previous Stories:
  Awwad on Egypt's role in Darfur   (5/8/2006)
  Sudan government, main rebels sign Darfur peace agreement   (5/6/2006)
  Sudan Darfur peace talks fail deadline   (5/5/2006)

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