A brazen attack launched yesterday in North Darfur killed seven UNAMID peacekeepers and wounded 22, many of them critically. This is likely to be the largest assault ever on Darfur peacekeepers - a sad display of the deteriorating conditions in the region and the world’s failure to address them.

According to a report by the United Nations, the unidentified militia used heavy weapons and exchanged fire with the UNAMID convoy for more than two hours.

It is a miserable state of affairs that a year after the U.N. Security Council authorized UNAMID, the troops have neither the numbers, the training, nor the equipment to protect themselves, let alone the people of Darfur. Twelve months, and the world’s most powerful nations cannot find it within themselves to produce the political will, a few hundred trucks, or even just 24 helicopters to protect Darfuris who have weathered more than five years of genocide.

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