Banjul, Gambia – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pressed Sudan’s president Sunday to accept U.N. peacekeepers in the country’s war-racked Darfur region and said he expected the troops to be deployed there despite staunch government opposition.
Senegal’s president, meanwhile, told African leaders gathered at a summit in Gambia that his government had agreed to try former Chad dictator His sene Habre instead of sending him to a Belgian court that indicted him on war-crimes charges.
About 7,000 African Union troops are deployed in Darfur, and their mandate expires in September. Annan wants a U.N. force to replace them, but Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir is opposed, arguing it would be the same as letting foreign forces occupy his country.
The conflict in Darfur has left nearly 200,000 people dead, driven 2 million from their homes and undermined stability in neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.
