Donors pledge €160m to Darfur operation

International donors pledged an additional €160m to fund the African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur today during a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to raise money to stop the ongoing violence in western Sudan.

Canada made the largest new pledge, promising €106m. The US State Department’s senior representative on Sudan, Charles Snyder, said the US was adding €39m to the €76m already pledged to help end what he called “acts of genocide”.

The AU has 2,270 troops in western Sudan attempting to stop fighting between rebels and Arab militias, but has plans to increase that number to more than 12,300. The African Union has asked for €575m to help finance and equip the Darfur operation, but was €278m short at the beginning of today’s conference.

“The truth is the AU was looking for outside support and when you are looking at support on this kind of scale we need an organisation that can do it, such as Nato,” Snyder told The Associated Press.

Snyder said the violence in Darfur was slowing, but that the only way to end it was to deploy a large AU force supported by Nato.

Other nations made smaller pledges, or offered troops.

The peacekeeping operation is a critical test of international commitment and Africa’s resolve to end conflicts in the world’s poorest continent, the AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said.

“If Sudan were to collapse then the entire continent of Africa, with nine countries bordering Sudan, will also suffer and collapse,” he told the donors.

AU officials also announced that Darfur peace talks would resume in Abuja, Nigeria on June 10.

“We are running a race against time,” said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was at the conference along with Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

“If violence and fear prevent the people of Darfur from planting and growing crops next year, then millions will have to be sustained by an epic relief effort which will stretch international capacity to the maximum,” Annan said.

The Africa Union is seeking six helicopter gunships, 116 armoured personnel carriers and other equipment to help it deploy more peacekeepers in Darfur, the scene of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

De Hoop Scheffer told the conference that Nato was ready to supply airlift capability and training for the AU peacekeepers.

“If you ask for help and we can help, we will help,” he said. “But the African Union has to remain in the driving seat.”

Solana said the EU was ready to support the political and military efforts to end the conflict, but did not provide any financial figures.

At least 180,000 people have died – many from hunger and disease – and about 2 million others have fled their homes in Darfur to escape the conflict between rebels on one side and government forces and pro-government militia on the other.

The AU is trying to beef up its 2,270-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur to more than 7,700 troops by September, and 12,000 by next year. It has been bogged down by logistical problems and a lack of air support in the region the size of France.

Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Gambia and Senegal have all said they have troops ready for deployment in Darfur.

At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, EU nations offered air and ground transportation and help with command planning, surveillance and housing for the AU’s Darfur peacekeepers. The EU will not send peacekeeping troops.

The North Atlantic Council of alliance ambassadors said they approved the “initial military options” for possible Nato support for the peacekeeping mission and said their efforts would centre on military transport, training and planning.

The crisis in Darfur erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia known as Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans.