OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 9 (OneWorld) - A leading rights watchdog has urged the African Union (AU) to hasten and enlarge its deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan's war-blighted Darfur region amid warnings the humanitarian situation there is worsening.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the number of troops now in the region is too low in the face of escalating conflict between government-backed militias, known as Janjaweed, and rebels from minority tribes.

''The African Union's current force in Darfur remains too small, and the projected rate of deployment of more troops too slow to protect civilians and reverse ethnic cleansing in the western Sudanese region,'' Peter Takirambudde, HRW's Africa director, told the AU's Peace and Security Council in a letter dated May 5 but issued on Sunday.

''The African Union must quickly build up its troop presence in Darfur,'' Takirambudde said. ''Success depends on the African Union's ability to get enough troops on the ground now to stop ongoing violence across Darfur.''

Last month, the pan-African body agreed to increase the size of its Darfur mission from the 3,320 to be deployed by the end of May to 7,731 by the end of September and appealed to the its 53 member governments to support the operation with troops and cash.

The rights group said that as many as 12,300 troops are needed, a figure suggested previously by Jan Pronk, the United Nations secretary general's special representative to Sudan.

HRW praised the AU for taking the lead in efforts to restore security to Darfur. It said the Sudanese government had not objected to the presence of African troops but rejected any deployment of non-African troops. Nevertheless, HRW urged: ''If the African countries that have pledged troops are not able to deploy them in a timely fashion, the African Union should seek those forces from other countries and request the international community to provide necessary logistical and technical support.''

The AU force originally had been deployed to monitor an April 2004 ceasefire between the government and two rebel groups. HRW said the AU has since documented routine violations of the ceasefire by all parties to the conflict.

The fighting in Darfur has killed at least 180,000, the United Nations said. British parliamentary investigators estimated the death toll at up to 300,000.

U.S.-based advocacy group Africa Action put the number killed at around 400,000 and has projected up to one million deaths by the end of the year unless international peacekeeping efforts are ramped up immediately.

Africa Action has led U.S. activists campaigning for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed to Darfur. It sponsored and is circulating a petition urging the administration of President George W. Bush to ''assert U.S. leadership by taking every step necessary through the United Nations to establish a mandate for an international force to protect civilians [and] deploy such a force in support of existing African Union efforts in Darfur.''

Rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government in early 2003, after years of tribal conflict over scarce resources in the arid region. They accused the government of neglect and of arming the Janjaweed to loot and burn non-Arab villages.

The government in Khartoum has admitted arming some militias to fight the rebels but denied any links to the Janjaweed, which it has called outlaws.

HRW said Khartoum had repeatedly failed to make good its promises of reining in the militias and resolving the Darfur problem at the negotiating table.

More than two million people have been forced from their homes by the fighting, according to UN and AU estimates--twice the number believed to have been displaced a year ago.

''Displaced persons fear losing their land, but are unwilling to return home because of continued Janjaweed attacks, ongoing burning of villages and widespread destruction of crops,'' the HRW letter said.

The AU, in an April 28 report, called for an increase in African forces in Darfur to 12,300 military, police and civilian personnel by spring 2006.

HRW urged the African equivalent of the European Union to commit and deploy the 12,300 troops to Darfur immediately, saying that at present the AU mission consists of 2,372 troops deployed across a region the size of France.

The African troops have been able to establish pockets of security in Darfur despite their limited numbers and poor international support, according to humanitarian group Refugees International.

AU troops have headed off attacks, negotiated the release of hostages, and provided enough security for some displaced villagers to return home, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said.

The successes seem improbable for such a small force in an area with few roads, airfields and other infrastructure, vast deserts, high temperatures and a summer rainy season that turns everything to mud, Refugees International said in a recent field report.

Even so, international observers have warned that the overall humanitarian and security situation continues to worsen.

A U.N. commission concluded in January that crimes against humanity--but not genocide--had occurred in Darfur. Last month, the world body passed a resolution referring cases of alleged atrocities since July 1, 2002 to the International Criminal Court.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan then handed the names of 51 people suspected of war crimes and atrocities in Darfur to the court. The list, drawn up by a U.N. commission investigating allegations of killings, torture and rape, included Sudanese government and army officials as well as militia and rebel leaders.