The United Nations and the African Union on Wednesday proposed a 44 per cent cut in the number of peacekeeping troops in their joint force in Darfur of Sudan and a 30 per cent reduction in the international police force.

On the 10th anniversary of the Security Council’s decision to deploy the AU-UN mission in Darfur (UNAMID), the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, El Ghassim Wane, briefed the Council on the joint recommendations of the Secretary-General and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on the reconfiguration of the Mission. Wane said that, over the last three years, "the conflict has markedly changed,” following a successful military campaign by the government of Sudan.

The number of inter-communal security incidents has decreased and progress has been made on the political front. Yet, as illustrated by a population of internally displaced persons of 2.7 million, a number of crucial grievances at the origin of the conflict and key issues related to its aftermath still need to be addressed, he said. The AU and UN hybrid operation in Darfur is a joint AU and UN peacekeeping mission formally approved by UN Security Council Resolution 1769 on July 31 2007, to bring stability to the war-torn Darfur region in western Sudan while peace talks on a final settlement continued.

Xinhua