The international strategy for dealing with the Darfur
crisis primarily through the small (7,000 troops) African
Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is at a dead end. AMIS
credibility is at an all-time low, with the ceasefire it
could never monitor properly in tatters. In the face of
this, the international community is backing away from
meaningful action. The African Union (AU) yielded to
Khartoum’s pressure on 10 March 2006 and did not ask
the UN to put into Darfur the stronger international force
that is needed. If the tragedy of the past three years is not
to be compounded, the AU and its partners must address
the growing regional crisis by getting more troops with
greater mobility and firepower on the ground at once
and rapidly transforming AMIS into a larger, stronger
UN peacekeeping mission with a robust mandate focused
on civilian protection.
The battlefield now extends into eastern Chad, and the
escalating proxy war between Sudan and Chad threatens
to produce a new humanitarian catastrophe on both sides
of the border. Inside Darfur humanitarian access is at its
lowest in two years, civilians continue to bear the brunt of
the violence, and political talks are stalled. Fighting is most
intense and civilians are at greatest risk in West Darfur
along the Chad-Sudan border, where a major invasion by
Chadian rebels appears imminent, and in southern Darfur
in the Tawila-Graida corridor
