UNITED NATIONS, July 31 (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council said deep concern over the situation in Sudan's troubled Darfur region led to a decision to renew a mandate for a peacekeeping force.
Ibn Chambas, director of the joint peacekeeping mission known as UNAMID, told the Security Council last week violence in Darfur has continued unabated for the better part of a decade.
Deadly attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers in the region in early July coincided with an assassination attempt on Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, accused of committing war crimes during the genocide in Darfur early last decade. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was forced to leave an AIDS conference in Nigeria this month amid calls for his arrest on war crimes charges related to the genocide in Darfur.
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution extending the mandate for a peacekeeping mission for Darfur because of "deep concern" of a range of security and human rights issues.
It "demands that all parties to the conflict ... engage immediately and without preconditions to make every effort to reach a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive peace settlement" for Darfur.
