Darfur mission extended until 2006
NATO recently agreed to extend its support for the African Union in Darfur until March 2006, providing airlift support for the rotation of peacekeeping troops as well as additional training.
DARFUR, Sudan -- The North Atlantic Council (NAC) decided on 30 September to continue to offer support until 31 March 2006 to the African Union (AU) for further troop rotations of African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) forces as well as for Staff Capacity Building to add to the military skills of the AU officers.
This decision comes after a mid-September AU request for further support. This decision further marks NATO’s commitment to contribute to strengthening the African Union’s capability to significantly expand its presence in Darfur in an attempt to halt the continuing violence.
The NAC had originally decided to extend the duration of support to the AMIS until 31 October in order to enable NATO to coordinate the transportation of the remaining 3 AMIS Battalions after a deployment pause of three weeks.
The logistical support to AMIS for the coordination of strategic airlift began in July of this year. Since that time, NATO has coordinated the transportation of approximately 3800 AU troops including 49 members of the civilian police force.
For the conduct of these airlift missions NATO is working closely with the European Union, the United Nations, NGOs and individual Nations, in a combined endeavour to promote peace in the Darfur region.
In addition to the airlift missions, NATO has also provided Staff Capacity Building workshops for the African Union’s officers within the Deployed Integrated Task Force (DITF) Headquarters in Ethiopia. The training that began on 01 August covered command and control procedures, reporting systems, battle rhythm, intelligence collection and analysis, force generation, situational awareness and task force and headquarters standard operating procedures refinement. This effort concluded 22 August with a graduation ceremony in El Fashir, Sudan for the more than 100 AU officers who had completed NATO training workshops at the AMIS Force HQ located there.
Furthermore, NATO provided 14 officers in support of a United Nations (UN) Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) organized MAP Exercise for the AMIS Force Headquarters in El Fashir Sudan. In this exercise, NATO provided exercise and OPLAN writers, as well as tactical-level controllers. The MAP Exercise ran from 21 to 27 August 05 and was a valuable opportunity to increase the AU’s ability to operate in the dynamic humanitarian scenario presented in Darfur.