Agata Hinc, AfricaNews reporter in Warsaw, Poland, photo: Ton Koene

AfricaNews - The EU has set in motion plans to send a peacekeeping force to Chad along its troubled border with Sudan to help protect aid to tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in Darfur. The mission's purpose would be to protect civilian populations in Chad and contain the chaos in Sudan’s western province of Darfur.

The EU soldiers would also protect UN and humanitarian personnel working in the region. Amnesty International appealed to the EU nations to act fast, saying they should also try to protect people fleeing violence inside Chad. The EU official said the Chad mission would be split into two components: a police element to protect and maintain order within the refugee camps and a military one with responsibility to secure the area around the camps and beyond.
There are some international voices (for example Lotte Leicht from the Brussels office of Human Rights Watch), which call on the EU to ensure that the mission needs a strong UN Chapter 7 mandate based on robust self-defense, allowing it to take whatever steps are deemed necessary to protect civilians.

Size

The size of the EU's mission is still uncertain, but the European Union nations agreed to start planning for a possible 3,000-strong peacekeeping mission, though a smaller number is more likely, says the EU diplomat. The EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels (July 23-24) gave a green-light to EU experts to gather information and data on what countries could provide forces for the mission.

As much as half the force could be French, with the balance drawn from other EU countries. Initially, only European soldiers will take part in it, although it is anticipated that responsibility for the force could be transferred to the United Nations after a year.

Refugees

Nearly a quarter of a million Darfurians, who have fled just across the border into Chad because of violence and abuse carried out by janjaweed militia and rebel movements, now live in refugee camps in dire conditions along Chad's border with Sudan. Given that another 170,000 are internally displaced within Darfur, the refugee numbers could easily grow.

Fighting in Chad

The decision to deploy to the region is long overdue in view of the grave human rights violations not only in Sudan but also in Chad, where rebel groups are fighting Deby's government. Both sides of the civil war in Chad have recruited children. The recruitment and use of children under 15 is a war crime. Yet while thousands of children had been recruited and only little more than 400 have so far been demobilized.

Problems

"France has been accused of protecting Déby's regime by a number of African countries," said Alain Délétroz from the International Crisis Group. The other thing is that the rebel groups associate the EU force with France, the former colonial power. There are also some suggestions that the EU is more interested in exploiting the country's oil resources than bringing lasting peace to the country.

Rebels warn

Albissaty Saleh Allazan, the leader of a Chadian rebel group Conseil d'Action Révolutionnaire said that "if they [EU forces] come simply to protect the Darfur refugees in eastern Chad then we have no problem with that (…) but if they end up interposing themselves between us and N'djemena [Chad's capital] then we will fight them."

Important question

There was one important question, which appeared after the EU decision to sent peacekeeping forces to Chad: Why hasn't the EU got the courage to send troops to Darfur, where people are suffering in huge numbers?

We’ll see, whether the EU will leave a security of Darfur region to AU/UN forces and will take care of refugees in Chad only or maybe they will compose common AU/UN/EU force to combat the conflict wherever we can find its consequences.