UN considers withdrawal of peacekeepers from Darfur

New York, March 18, (dpa/GNA) - The UN Security Council discussed Tuesday the eventual withdrawal of the world's largest peacekeeping force from Sudan's Darfur, where renewed conflict displaced half a million people in the past year.

A UN peacekeeping team was already in the capital Khartoum, working on a process that would chalk out plans for eventual exit of the peacekeeping forces - known as UNAMID, the UN peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous, told the 15-member Security Council.

Ladsous emphasized that the departure of more than 20,000 joint UN-African Union force would be based on "clear benchmarks" as there was still "a lot of work to be done inside Darfur."

The UN peacekeeping chief, who was updating the council on the current situation in Darfur, said that the security has "deteriorated significantly" in the past year, leaving nearly half a million people displaced, including some 43,000 in the past two months.

"We have been facing [a] flurry of renewed security incidents on a rather large scale," Ladsous told reporter later.

The "exit strategy" for joint UN-African Union forces comes following a demand by President Omar al-Bashir, who also ordered the expulsion of top UN officials and the closure of the human rights office of the mission last year.

The tension between the UN mission and the Sudanese government further intensified last October after the Sudanese army had allegedly raped more than 200 women in the town of Thabit in North Darfur.

The UN mission sent a team to the town immediately after the reports emerged, but they were unable to find evidence of the rapes.

Human Rights Watch later reported details of the incident it pieced together through interviews with the local residents. UNAMID has been unable to get permission to return to the town since.

François Delattre, French ambassador to the UN and president of the Security Council for the month of March, said Tuesday that the UN investigation team has "faced considerable restrictions of access from the Sudanese government" since the allegations of rape have emerged.

The council has already asked Khartoum for a "full and unrestricted access to the site," Delattre told reporters. "We won't give up."

GNA