SUDAN:Any number of international peacekeeping forces will make little difference to Darfur's thousands of displaced people unless there is a peace deal to protect them, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Diplomatic negotiations last week reached fever pitch as Sudan appeared to accept a UN plan to deploy a 3,000-strong force in support of an overstretched African Union presence. The US and UK led calls to impose sanctions if Khartoum failed to stick to the deal, as it has before.
However yesterday, commissioner António Guterres said that although the deal was a step in the right direction, more needed to be done to bring all the parties back to the negotiating table.
"I believe it is an important element for the security of the region but it is not the only condition," he said after arriving in Khartoum from a tour of aid camps in the troubled western region.
"As important is the need for a comprehensive and effective peace agreement for all the parties involved in order to create conditions for the different communities to be able to live again together.
"The problem is a political problem," Mr Guterres said. "It is also a problem of relations between different groups - farmers and herders, nomads and sedentary people, and different tribes . . . we need to re-establish the equilibrium that existed for centuries past."
It is four years since rebels took up arms against a government they believe neglected their interests. Khartoum responded by using nomadic Arab tribes to attack rebel villages in a scorched earth policy to deprive the rebellion of support.
A one-year-old peace deal between one rebel faction and the government has failed to halt the bloodshed. In fact the situation has deteriorated, with the rebel groups splintering and Arab tribes turning on each other.
"In the absence of peace you could have 100,000 policemen and that would not be enough," said Mr Guterres.
Today, some 400,000 people are reliant on aid, with more than 200,000 living in sprawling camps.
Last week gunmen hijacked a vehicle belonging to the Irish charity Goal.
On Sunday Oxfam announced it was withdrawing from Um Dukhun, close to the border with Chad, because of worsening security conditions.