UNITED NATIONS, March 7 (UPI) -- The United Nations stepped up pressure on Sudan over its embattled western-most region of Darfur on two fronts.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written a new letter to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir detailing a proposed African Union-U.N. hybrid force of up to 24,000 personnel to help resolve the deadly conflict.
On the second front, Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa, this month's president of the U.N. Security Council called in Khartoum's envoy, Ambassador Abdalmahmood Mohamad of Sudan.
Kumalo told reporters he wanted to know just when a long-promised letter from Bashir was going to arrive describing his reaction to a Phase II heavy support package proposal. Bashir had previously opposed any U.N. peacekeepers, fearing what he described as "recolonialization" of his country. He later relented saying he would allow the combination force.
Monday evening Mohamad told reporters "It's on its way." The Khartoum envoy told reporters Wednesday he told Kumalo essentially the same thing, "The letter is coming, at any moment."
More than 200,000 people have perished as a result of the conflict over the last four years and another 2.5 million more people have been displaced.
The secretary-general's letter "is in line with our agreement to proceed in transparency and share with the Sudanese Government the joint AU-U.N. planning on a strengthened peacekeeping presence in Darfur," spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters Wednesday.
The latest hybrid force proposed represents the final phase of a three-phase plan agreed to by the United Nations, AU and Sudanese government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November to help end the fighting between the Sudanese Government, allied militias and rebels seeking greater autonomy, which broke out in 2003.
