Darfur conflict 'worsens'

2007-11-26 15:21

Nairobi - The conflict in Darfur has worsened "radically" for the past year, with rebel groups fracturing, new dimensions to the crisis evolving and a fledgling peace deal far from taking shape, an international think-tank has warned.

In a new report entitled Darfur's New Security Reality, the International Crisis Group (ICG) detailed the grim situation in Sudan's embattled western province and the international community's failure to deal with it.

The report said: "Violence is again increasing, access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective and a political settlement remains far off."

ICG lambasted newly-restarted peace talks in Libya as being exclusive and not addressing the root causes of the conflict.

Broadening peace talks

With only a smattering of rebel factions attending the Libya talks, ICG warned that they had become less representative and were not addressing the plight of victims caught in the ongoing maelstrom of violence.

"The new realities emphasise the necessity of broadening participation in the peace talks to include the full range of actors and constituencies involved in the conflict, including its primary victims, such as women, but also Arab tribes," who were at the cusp of a new insurgency, the report said.

But with the intermission in United Nations-African Union mediated talks, ICG said the international community had an opportunity to seize and take time to attract excluded stakeholders and "reformulate the process".

Moreover, ICG said the deployment of a hybrid UN-AU force for Darfur (UNAMID) must be closely linked to the peace talks to ensure there were no discrepancies between the force, the rebels and the government as to the mission's duties.

Meanwhile, the international community must be more invested in UNAMID, fortifying it and allowing the mission to react strongly and effectively to violations of a peace deal - unlike its support to the AU mission in Darfur, which had struggled to contain the violence.

More than 200 000 people had been killed and two million displaced in the four-year conflict, which Washington had termed "genocide".

Sapa-dpa

- SAPA