The Netherlands will begin to fly 154 Rwandan troops to Sudan's Darfur region next Saturday to serve as a protection force for African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors, the Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia has said.
"The Rwandan troops will be airlifted to Darfur beginning Saturday. We consider getting the Rwandan troops on the ground to be very urgent," Mr Rob Bermaas confirmed.
Mr Rob Bermaas, Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia
"The airlift of the 154 Rwandan troops is on the basis of the offer of the government of the Netherlands to the African Union, which includes financing the whole operation (the airlift)," he added.
The Netherlands announced last week it would fund a mission to fly 360 Rwandan and Nigerian AU troops to Darfur to monitor a shaky truce between rebels and the Khartoum government.
It will be the first foreign deployment of troops in Darfur, where the United Nations says the world 's worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding.
It has not yet been decided when the Nigerian forces would be sent to Darfur, an area the size of France.
The 53-member AU has also said it wants to boost the number of troops to Darfur to 2,000 and broaden the original mandate of the AU force to including a peacekeeping role as well as protecting the ceasefire observers.
However, that plan awaits approval by the chairman of the AU's security body, the Peace and Security Council.
No agreement has been reached with Sudan over the deployment of a much larger force. Sudan has objected to any possibility AU troops might be used as peacekeepers.
Sudan said it has no problem with African ceasefire observers or African troops to protect those observers, but that peacekeeping is its responsibility.
The United Nations says 50,000 people have been killed and at least a million more displaced since two rebel groups took up arms against the government in February last year, triggering the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Darfur rebels said, meanwhile, they had not been informed of peace talks due to be held in Nigeria at the end of the month, but welcomed the choice of venue and mediation.
The AU said on Sunday rebels and the government had agreed to talks mediated by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja on August 23rd to find a political solution to end the rebellion launched in remote Darfur by two rebel groups in February last year.