New York - The United States has provided 100 million dollars to African countries that will send troops to the joint UN- African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region, the UN said Thursday. The US fund was to train and equip soldiers for the UN-African mission in Darfur (UNAMID), whose deployment is severely behind because of a lack of logistics and transport, particularly helicopters. Only about 9,000 of the authorized 30,000 military and civilian personnel of UNAMID have been deployed so far.
The UN said a so-called "friends of UNAMID" group led by the US and Canada met in New York on Thursday to discuss a faster pace of deployment.
The US on Wednesday complained that the UN was dragging its feet in the deployment and was focusing first on obtaining helicopters, which no governments have yet contributed to UNAMID.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the first meeting of the "friends of UNAMID" and called on UN members to contribute to the mission. He also thanked the US for the donation to the African nations, which were not named.
"The secretary general looks forward to sustained and focused international engagement on both peacekeeping and the political process in Darfur and calls on all parties to engage in good faith in the political negotiations in order to bring the current crisis to an end and achieve lasting peace," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
Ban met with the White House envoy for Sudan, Richard Williamson, on Wednesday to discuss the UNAMID deployment. The US diplomat said the UN had become "obsessive" about the helicopter issue.
"Given the instability and the violence going on, it's way past time for talks," Williamson told reporters. "We have to have action, including accelerating the deployment of UNAMID."
"The UN cannot let form prevails over substance," Williamson said.
He said peacekeepers deployed in Darfur have already made a "dramatic" impact on curbing violence, particularly sexual violence against women and girls leaving their camps to collect firewood unprotected. He said he had urged those troops to patrol after sunset near camps to protect the civilians.
