African Union Mission in Sudan

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Nigerian troops in Abuja are flown to al-Fashir by the US Air Force on October 28, 2004

The Mission of the African Union in Sudan ( English African Union Mission in Sudan , short AMIS ) was a peace mission in Darfur in Sudan provided and led by the African Union (AU) .

aims

Her task was to monitor a ceasefire in the crisis region of Darfur in the west of the country, which was launched on April 25, 2004 in N'Djamena , Chad by the government in Khartoum , the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLA) and the Movement for Justice and Equality (JEM ) was agreed. In addition, the protection of the civilian population, a safe return opportunity for refugees and the security of the aid missions of the UN should be guaranteed.

The basis of this mission was an agreement of May 28, 2004 in Addis Ababa , Ethiopia between the AU and the parties involved in Sudan, as well as UN Security Council resolutions 1556 (July 30, 2004) and 1574 (November 19, 2004).

Troop strength and participating states

The AU initially sent 300 soldiers and 80 ceasefire observers to Sudan and later increased them to 3,000 men. In October 2005 the strength of the international force was 6,300 men, but at this point it was to be increased to 7,700. The AU states Gambia , Kenya , Nigeria , Rwanda , Senegal and South Africa participated in the troop contingent . They were supported with transport services from Germany , Great Britain , the Netherlands and the USA .

course

The German federal government supported the mission with the first deployment of air transport forces from the Luftwaffe to move 196 Gambian soldiers and around twelve tons of cargo. The German participation began on December 16, 2004 and ended successfully on December 23, 2004. The Bundeswehr deployed around 200 soldiers, three C-160 "Transall" transport aircraft and an Airbus A310-300 (10 + 23 " Kurt Schumacher ") ) a.

On March 24, 2005, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) received, among other things, the mandate of the United Nations Security Council to support AMIS.

On October 9, 2005, the AU announced that a patrol had been attacked. Two Nigerian soldiers and two civilian employees were killed and another three Nigerian soldiers were injured. According to AMIS, the SLA is said to have been responsible for the attack. A day later the Bundeswehr started again to support the AMIS. 280 Ghanaian police officers were flown from Accra in Ghana to N'Djamena in Chad, followed by a flight to al-Fashir in Sudan. This mission ended on October 17, 2005.

On November 29, 2005, the German Bundestag extended Bundeswehr support for AMIS for a further 6 months. As before, only logistical services are to be offered, but no soldiers are to be available for missions in Darfur itself. Further extensions for six months each took place on December 15, 2005 and June 3, 2007. On July 19, 2006, an American C-130 transport aircraft carried around 1,300 Rwandan soldiers in several flights as part of the AU peace mission from Kigali to Darfur.

From March 10 to 24, 2006, the Bundeswehr was back in action. Three Luftwaffe C-160 Transall transport aircraft from Lufttransportgeschwader 61 transported around 500 soldiers from Senegal from the N'Djamena transshipment point in Chad to El Fasher in the Darfur region. 55 Air Force soldiers were deployed. On December 31, 2007, Operation AMIS became Operation UNAMID .

Achieved goals

Raids by rebel groups on places west of al-Fashir from February 2003 onwards are considered to be the beginning of the civil war, which were answered a little later with counter-attacks by the Sudanese army and, from July 2003, with massive aerial bombardments on villages within the rebels' sphere of influence. The first ceasefire agreement between the government and the rebel group Sudanese Liberation Army was signed on September 3, 2003 for 45 days. The JEM rebels did not sign. The ceasefire was not respected by either side, but was nevertheless extended by a month. Any subsequent ceasefire agreements that were limited in time or regionally were also ignored. Before the signing of UN Security Resolution 1556 in July 2004, the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell had described the situation in Darfur as “ genocide ” for the first time .

In view of this history, the AMIS mission was carried out half-heartedly by all concerned. The African states were ready to send soldiers, but did not want to arrange for their transport. The Sudanese government did its best to make access difficult by denying travel permits. The troops' equipment was insufficient. In order to be able to control an area the size of France, only eight civil helicopters without night vision devices were available and their fuel supply was not reliably guaranteed. Until January 2006, the European Union insufficiently financed the mission with € 242 million from development aid funds intended for Africa. The African soldiers and police officers were also demotivated because of short-term and uncertain mandate extensions. The Sudanese government had rejected a robust mandate for the AMIS, so it was purely an observer mission and protection of the civilian population could not be achieved. For those affected, the activities of the AMIS were too little and intervention came too late.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adoji Onoya: Peacekeeping Challenges in Africa: The Darfur Conflict. Conflict Trends 3, 2008, pp. 39–44 (PDF; 228 kB)

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