UNAMID troop and police ceilings in Darfur end today
The UN Security Council will today decide on courses of action regarding the possible drawdown and exit of the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
The mission, created in 2007, has a peacekeeping and civilian protection mandate in Darfur that is set to expire in October. Earlier this year, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok requested the departure of UNAMID. In its place, he has sought the formation of a special political mission to Sudan (under Chapter VI of the UN Charter) with a more flexible mandate and without the presence of peacekeepers and police.
A weak UN presence would mean a transfer of the mission’s civilian protection mandate to the government and greater concessions to the Sudanese military amid continuing reports of violence perpetrated by the armed forces. Weakening international oversight will add tension to the fragmenting Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) alliance, the civilian coalition behind the protests that helped oust former president Omar al-Bashir and form the current government. Considering the risk of splits between different factions and that some of the country’s camps for internally displaced persons remain vulnerable to militia attacks, expect the UNAMID withdrawal to significantly compromise Sudan’s peace process, which has been a political imperative for the current transitional government.
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