AU observers due in Sudan's Darfur region in next few days

Tuesday May 25th, 2004.

ADDIS ABEBA, May 25 (AFP) -- African Union military observers will deploy in western Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region in the next few days, the pan-continental body announced Tuesday.

"The Peace and Security Council (PSC) has decided to send a (60-member) observer team, if necessary with a protection force numbering 100 to 300," AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit told reporters.

The PSC, which held its first meetings in March, was officially inaugurated at the AU's headquarters in Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

The observers will be mandated to monitor a shaky ceasefire signed April 8 between the Khartoum government and rebel groups who took up arms in February 2003.

Since then at least 10,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than a million displaced, while Khartoum has been widely condenmned for atrocities committed by militia forces in the region.

Aid agencies have warned the whole of Darfur faces mass starvation unless crops can be sown or food stocks preposition immediately.

Speaking after a meeting of the 15-member PSC -- the first to be held at the level of heads of state and government -- Djinnit said the first observers would arrive in the Darfur town of El Fashir in the next few days.

The council urged "all the parties to fully and scrupulously implement the ceasefire agreement" which each side has accused the other of violating on several occasions.

A ceasefire commission provided for in the April 8 deal, comprising representatives of the government and the rebels, is finally due to hold its first meeting in Addis Ababa on Thursday and Friday, when final arrangements for the observers' deployment will be made.

The team will include representatives of the AU, the United States, the European Union the Sudanese government and the rebel groups.

The PSC also decided to set up an "inquiry team to assess the human rights violation in Darfur and to report to the AU sumit in July."

It called on Khartoum to "pursue the disarmament and control of the militias vigourously" and welcomed "the announcement by the Sudanese government that they will facilitate visas to NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to journalists and to UN agencies."

On Ivory Coast, the council "agreed to form an independent inquiry commission to investigate human rights since the beginning of the crisis" in the west African state in September 2002.