First UN peacekeepers arrive in Sudan

EL-OBEID, Sudan - The first deployment of a huge UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan began on Wednesday with 12 Nepalese soldiers and equipment arriving in clouds of dust on a cool morning in the west of the country.

The soldiers are part of an eventual deployment of 10,000 peacekeeping troops, military observers and hundreds of civilian police to help shore up a peace deal signed in January which ended more than two decades of civil war in Sudan's south.

"They are the first, the beginning of the deployment on the ground," said UN spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.

The Nepalese contingent will eventually number 225 troops and will be deployed to Kassala in Sudan's east.

The southern conflict, which claimed 2 million lives, spread across the south and the east of Africa's largest country. The Nepalese force will consist of military monitors, logistics officers and protection forces.

The troops emerged early on Wednesday morning from a large Antonov cargo plane, with about half a dozen trucks, fuel tanks and other equipment.

They arrived in El-Obeid in the west of Sudan, which is one of the main operational centres for aid agencies working in the south. They came directly from Nepal.

UN peacekeepers in Sudan will mostly come from China, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh as well as small contingents from some Western countries. They hope to be fully deployed by the end of September.

The southern conflict broadly pitted the Islamist government in Khartoum against the mainly Christian and pagan southern rebels, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology. It forced more than 4 million to flee their homes and devastated the south which has little infrastructure.

A huge reconstruction programme financed by part of a $4.5 billion pledge by donors for Sudan is also planned for the south after the long-awaited peace deal.

A shaky ceasefire is in place in a separate conflict in Sudan's remote Darfur region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed.

- REUTERS