Pressure on China to act

THE bloodshed in Darfur, rather than abating after UN peacekeepers finally deployed to the war-torn region in western Sudan earlier this year, has instead gotten worse.

The tragedy is that such news should come as no surprise. Sudan, which has thumbed its nose at the world for five years, either ignoring or undermining efforts by the international community to stop government-backed, murderous attacks on civilians in Darfur, has recently stepped up assaults, again, on innocent inhabitants in the region. Observers say the level of violence – including murder, rape, looting and destruction of property – is now as bad as its worst levels, seen back in 2003 and 2004.

For Sudan’s government, embroiled in a brutal war with rebels from the Darfur region, the world’s reluctance to press the regime with more than heated words and half-hearted attempts to intervene have emboldened the authorities. Despite the carnage – which some experts now say has cost 400,000 lives and displaced more than three million people – the UN has so far been able to field just over 9,000 members of a planned contingent of 26,000. And most of those now on the ground representing UNAMID (United Nations African Union Mission to Darfur) have come from the previous, and largely ineffective, African Union force of some 7,500 soldiers. Read more >>>>