Sudan: Darfur Still Living in Fear As First AU Troops Arrive

The situation in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan remained tense as the first batch of an African Union (AU) force, consisting of 154 Rwandan troops, arrived to protect an AU observer mission, relief workers said. "The overall situation on the ground throughout the Darfur region remains very tense," Jennifer Abrahamson, public information officer for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan, told IRIN on Monday. The UN has described the conflict in Darfur as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, at the moment. An estimated 2.2 million people are in urgent need of food, medicine and other basic items of survival, of whom 1.2 million are IDPs who have been forced from their homes by attacks launched by government-backed Janjawid militias.