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The African Union's chief administrator said here Wednesday the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region cannot be solved militarily and urged all sides to adhere to a peace agreement.
AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare lamented that only one Darfur rebel group has signed a peace accord reached in Abuja, Nigeria, in May 2006 aimed at ending the civil war.
“We have always been convinced that the problem does not have a military solution and that we must continue working to make all Sudanese — the government and rebel movements — adhere to the Abuja accord,” Konare said at a news conference alongside Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.
Some 7,000 AU military observers are stationed in Darfur to oversee implementation of the Abuja agreement.
But the under-equipped and cash-strapped force has struggled to patrol a region the size of France.
The United Nations wants to send more than 2,300 troops to Darfur to pave the way for a joint UN-African Union force of up to 20,000 soldiers, but Sudan has yet to allow the deployment.
“When we had to ask for UN troops, we asked, and we want it. But unfortunately, due to trust problems, we have not obtained this,” Konare said.
Ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in February 2003, drawing a scorched earth response from the military and allied militias.
According to UN estimates, since then 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict.
