SUDAN: A 30-day deadline could be set by the international community for the Sudanese authorities to crack down on its Janjaweed militias or face UN sanctions, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs has suggested.
Mr Tom Kitt raised the possibility in advance of a meeting of EU foreign Ministers in Brussels on Monday. Mr Kitt said "time is running out for Sudan".
The EU is sending observers to assist the African Union in monitoring the ceasefire, among them Comdt Bernard Markey from Dublin who served in Rwanda/Burundi in 1994 and later in Chechnya on secondment to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The crisis in Sudan will top the agenda at the EU General Affairs council meeting of the 25 countries, as it has emerged that the Arab militias are still attacking fellow Muslim black Africans in the Darfur region of western Sudan, despite a commitment by Khartoum to disarm them.
Some 1.2 million people have been displaced in Darfur, a further 200,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad and an estimated 30,000 have been killed. The EU talks take place as a US congressional resolution confirmed that genocide was taking place in the Darfur region.
The UN has declared the situation in Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis but stopped short of calling it genocide, which would compel military intervention.
The US administration has drafted a resolution threatening sanctions if the Sudanese government does not disarm the Janjaweed and remove all restrictions on access to Darfur. The sanctions would prevent government members travelling, freeze assets and embargo arms sales to Sudan. The Sudanese government says it is trying to comply but it will take time to implement its plans.
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