The conflict in Darfur has affected an estimated four million people. Photo: Gillian Sandford, ACT

The global alliance ACT International urges the international community to increase its response to the grave humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan, and step up efforts for creating a lasting peace in the wider region.

This follows the long-awaited breakthrough resolution by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council to send 26,000 peacekeepers to the conflict-stricken region. The purpose of the peacekeepers is to provide vital security to civilians and aid workers in Darfur.

“Although we recognize that this force is not an end-all solution to the conflict, we do hope it brings greater stability and access to some four million people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance,” says Sushant Agrawal, moderator of ACT International’s executive committee.

The peacekeepers could take into 2008 to be in place, which means that the African Union presence of only 7,000 troops will continue to be the main peacekeeping force in Darfur for the coming months. The new peacekeeping force is to combine with the African (Union) Mission in Sudan (AMIS) by the end of the year and will have increased authority to use force to protect civilians and assist in the delivery of relief supplies.

The conflict in Darfur has cost some 200,000 people their lives, displaced over two and a half million and affected an estimated four million people since the outbreak of fighting in 2003.

Hopes that the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) signed in Abuja, Nigeria, in May 2006 would bring some peace to the region and permit the process of rehabilitation and recovery to start have not materialized. Humanitarian conditions and security have deteriorated steadily since then.

“The only lasting solution is a negotiated peace agreement, which now needs concerted international focus,” says Agrawal.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is working as a member of the Christian humanitarian response alliance, ACT-Caritas. The global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and Caritas International have been responding jointly in Darfur since the outset of this crisis. ACT members are Protestant and Orthodox. Caritas is the alliance of Catholic relief and development organizations.

Working through a network of faith-based and Sudanese aid agencies, ACT-Caritas has been providing shelter, clean water and sanitation, as well as building health clinics and schools for people living in camps for the displaced. Insecurity has hampered relief efforts, and in June, an ACT-Caritas staff member was killed.

It is hoped that a meeting, originally planned for this week in Arusha, Tanzania, to push for unity among different factions involved in the conflict in Darfur, will lay the framework for a new round of peace negotiations.

For additional information on advocacy for Sudan, visit the Sudan Advocacy Action Forum.