SUDAN: Sudan is expected to withdraw its deadline for African Union (AU)peacekeepers to leave the war-torn western region of Darfur at the end of this month, when AU foreign ministers discuss the mounting crisis in New York today, according to senior officials in Khartoum.
Sudanese president Omar al Bashir's ultimatum for an AU troop pull-out threatened to leave the huge area with no international monitors and provoke a major escalation of a three-year war which has already left a quarter of a million people dead.
A special "Global Day for Darfur" yesterday saw protesters in several dozen cities around the world call for an end to the fighting and warn of impending genocide.
British prime minister Tony Blair wrote to EU leaders yesterday calling for pressure on both Khartoum and the rebels, and dangling the carrot of aid if Sudan accepts an international force. EU commission president José Manuel Barroso is planning a trip to Khartoum shortly.
"We must step up our political engagement to do what we can to avoid a humanitarian crisis," he said yesterday.
Protests were held in Rwanda and Cambodia, sites of two of the world's worst recent genocides. Rwandan genocide survivor Freddy Umutanguha said: "In 1994 the world left Rwandans to their fate and a million people were murdered. Today the world must stop genocide in Darfur."
In Khartoum, however, protesters chanted "Down, down with the USA." Led by the US, the UN security council has called for international forces to replace the AU troops with better equipment and a stronger mandate.
Although the resolution says the troops require the consent of Sudan's government, President Bush hinted at the weekend that they should go in regardless.