As the one-year anniversary of the authorization of UNAMID approaches, we are constantly reminded of the world’s failure to protect the people of Darfur.
The Darfur Consortium released a report today that provides a view of Darfur from the ground, the miserable conditions that Darfuri civilians are enduring, and the inability of a long-delayed and ill-equipped peacekeeping force to protect them.
The report focuses on the failure of the world to deploy or equip peacekeepers for Darfur. In the year since the U.N. Security Council authorized UNAMID, the force has not even reached half its intended numbers. And the troops that are in Darfur have none of the equipment they need to be successful.
The report points out one particularly telling example of the world’s failure: Some troops have to wear blue plastic bags on their heads to identify themselves as UNAMID troops because they have no blue helmets.
Are all the mighty nations of the world so helpless that they can’t even give the troops helmets? This is simply inacceptable.
Click here to download the report and please click here to urge the U.N. Security Council that it cannot continue to drag its feet. The Security Council promised protection. It must deliver. Not tomorrow, not in a month, but now.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Save Darfur Coalition.
