UN agrees to extend Darfur role
The UN Security Council has committed itself to another year of peacekeeping in Sudan’s Darfur region despite sharp divisions over genocide charges against the Sudanese president.
The United States, though it supports the struggling peacekeeping mission, abstained from the council’s 14-0 vote.
It objected to the council noting in its reauthorisation that the African Union and some council members want the council to freeze the International Criminal Court’s prosecution of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
US spokesman Richard Grenell said the language in the resolution “sends the wrong signal to a man who presided over genocide.”
The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force took over duties in Darfur in January.
