by Alain Navarro

CAIRO, Feb 1, 2006 (AFP) - The internationalisation of the peacekeeping mission in Sudan's troubled Darfur region is unavoidable but the prospect of a NATO deployment could herald a new tug-of-war between the West and Khartoum, analysts say.

Three years after the conflict in the western Sudanese region erupted, dozens of people still die every day and the risk of a new war breaking out with Chad is growing, prompting the international community to change strategies.

"When I visited Darfur last May,

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Sudan will raise the issue of deteriorating security in the country's western Darfur region when he attends peace talks in Nigeria later this week, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said today.
Jan Pronk will head to Nigeria on Friday, according to UNMIS. The move comes amid reports from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that almost 70,000 people were displaced by attacks on two towns in South Darfur last week, forcing already displaced persons to flee yet again.

By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The United States wants the Security Council to approve a U.N. peacekeeping force for Sudan's violent Darfur region where fighting, rape and murder persist, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

"What we hope to accomplish in February is the decision by the U.N. Security Council, which would include the nature of the mission and issues of the size of the mission, implementation," Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters in Washington.

At the United Nations, the United States

Office of the Spokesman
Treaty Room
February 1, 2006
(1:05 p.m. EST)
DEPUTY SECRETARY ZOELLICK: I want to thank all of you for joining us and I wanted to say a few words before asking Minister Garang to comment. I'm very, very pleased that she and her delegation could come to the United States. A few months ago, Salva Kiir, who serves as the President of the Government of Southern Sudan and also Vice President, First Vice President, of the Government of National Unity, had an opportunity to visit the United States. After that, I had

Talks deal with peace, Darfur and development of Southern Sudan

By Susan Ellis, Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - Sudan's minister of roads and transport, Rebecca Garang, said she is committed to the Cabinet position she holds with the government of Southern Sudan because she painfully has traveled her nation's disastrous roads and knows how vital decent transportation routes are to her people's efforts to move their produce to market.

Garang, widow of Sudanese First Vice President John Garang, who was killed in a helicopter crash in July 2005,

Red Cross nurse Maree Dunn from Australia recently returned from Gereida in southern Darfur where the British Red Cross runs a health and water project with the Australian Red Cross and the Sudanese Red Crescent. She talks about the difference the project is making.
Maree Dunn was one of the first delegates to arrive in Gereida in September 2004. With her colleagues, she set up a health clinic in the camp just outside the town where 30,000 internally displaced people live.

"My first letters home were all about children dying from diarrhoea," she recalls. A lot has changed since.

General Situation during January 2006

Forecast until mid-March 2006

The Desert Locust situation was calm during January. Small-scale breeding continued in Mauritania, Niger and Sudan but locust numbers remained low and only limited control operations were required in Mauritania. Although good rains fell at times in parts of the Sahara, low temperatures will delay locust maturation. Breeding is expected to continue along the Red Sea coast, primarily in Sudan and perhaps to a lesser extent in Eritrea and Yemen. Breeding should decline

Note: Map production date estimated

(Extract)
Twice monthly news bulletin from the Jesuit Refugee Service International Office

REFUGEE NEWS BRIEFINGS

Côte d'Ivoire: attacks on humanitarian organisations unacceptable

Between 15-19 January, pro-government youths in Côte d'Ivoire demonstrated against a perceived infringement of their country's sovereignty. The demonstrations targeted French and United Nations operations in the government-controlled south of the country. However the protests escalated into violent encounters which resulted in five Ivoirian deaths and major destruction of property. JRS finds violence