KHARTOUM (AFP) — A beefed-up joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur is set to take over from the current under-manned AU force on Monday in a bid to end years of bloodshed.
The United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) -- the UN's largest -- will eventually consist of 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel although only around 9,000 troops and soldiers are currently in place.
The bulk of the current force comes from the 7,000 AU troops who have been trying to bring peace to the troubled western Sudanese region for the last three years, a joint AU-UN statement said on Sunday.
During that time 50 African troops have died, including 12 in the deadliest attack on an AU base of Haskanita in September in an attack widely blamed on Darfur rebels.
The bolstered force was authorised by the UN Security Council in July but it will not be fully operational until well into 2008 amid accusations Khartoum is stalling on the deployment and that contributing countries are not supplying enough hardware, in particular helicopters to patrol the vast region.
An official handing-over ceremony will take place on Monday, attended by Sudanese officials, during which the AU troops will swap their green berets for the blue of UN-mandated missions.
Current troops on the ground are mainly Rwandan, South African, Nigerian and Senegalese, accompanied by Kenyans, Gambians and a Chinese engineering company as well as 1,000 police from over 25 countries.
Additional soldiers from Egypt, Pakistan and Ethiopia as well as police from Nepal are to deploy in the next two months, the joint statement said.
"The situation in Darfur will not be transformed overnight," UNAMID head Rodolphe Adada warned.
"However we are optimistic that the deployment of UNAMID will help to begin to improve the security situation in Darfur and create a climate favourable to the achievement of a negotiated settlement of the conflict."
Efforts at brokering peace in Darfur have consistently stumbled. No major rebel group attended the latest peace initiative in Libya in October.
One faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement signed a peace deal with Khartoum in 2006 but other groups have demanded a restoration of security in Darfur before any agreement can be reached.
The conflict erupted in February 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Khartoum to demand an end to the political and economic marginalisation of their huge region the size of France.
Khartoum's response was to back the Arab Janjaweed militia and give it free rein to crack down on the rebels and their backers.
Darfur rebel groups continue to carry out attacks, also accusing Sudanese forces of continued violence.
The rebel Justice and Equality Movement has carried out two attacks on oil fields in the neighbouring region of Kordofan, demanding that the Chinese stop doing business in Sudan.
China is Khartoum's main arms supplier and also the biggest buyer of Sudanese oil.
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