Key players in the Darfur crisis are meeting in Paris today in a bid to build a unified international response to violence in the troubled region of Sudan - although Sudan itself has not been invited.

Amnesty International today called for multilateral sanctions against Sudan and the immediate deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to end the bloodshed in the country’s war-torn Darfur region.

The crisis in Darfur is a “humanitarian disaster that threatens the entire region,” French president Jacques Chirac said today. He urged Sudan to accept peacekeepers.