African Union mission positive about deployment of UN troops in Darfur

7 November 2008 – An African Union fact-finding mission to Darfur, aiming to mend the increasingly fraught relationship between Chad and Sudan, visited the hybrid United Nations-AU operation in the war-torn region today. The AU fact-finding team, led by former Burundian President Pierre Buyoya, follows accusations from both Khartoum and N'djamena that the other side has been supporting insurgencies in its country. Attacks by Chadian rebels on N'djamena in February preceded similar rebel assaults on Omdurman, near Khartoum, in May, leading to the escalation of tension between the two countries. The fact-finding team met with the UN-AU mission in Darfur in the context of AU efforts to normalize the relations between the two States after Sudan’s announced it was cutting off ties with Chad, claiming that it has helped... [read full story]