A Thin Coat of Blue

From where Fatuma Ibrahim sits, nothing in Darfur has changed. She and her four children are still living in a refugee camp in the western region of Sudan, in a stick-and-mud-walled hut with a ragged scrap of white tarpaulin for a roof. They still rely on international aid agencies to provide food and water. And there is apparently still no international force to protect her. About the United Nations force that is supposed to be protecting Darfur's displaced, she says, "We do not see them."

The U.N. last year agreed to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur. It was to be the largest, most expensive mission the U.N. had ever undertaken, replacing an ineffectual African Union force that had failed to halt the violence. On Dec. 31, peacekeepers in the 9,000-strong A.U. took off their green helmets and put on the U.N. blue, forming the joint U.N.-A.U. operation known as Unamid. No soldiers have been deployed. Nor have any of the 24 helicopters the mission needs to cover the region, which is about the size of France. Nor are there any new armored personnel carriers.

Even the helmets are not new. Most soldiers had to paint their green helmets blue. Some resorted to tying on blue plastic bags with elastic.

The threadbare force has failed to keep a lid on the violence. Indeed, since the start of the year, it has only gotten worse—a further 155,000 people have fled their homes since January. Government bombing campaigns have begun again in parts of north and west Darfur. Janjaweed militia members have moved into bombed-out villages, burning what remains.

But Unamid's failure is not merely due to a lack of resources and personnel. Peacekeepers need a peace to keep, and at the moment there is no sign of talks, let alone an agreement. An attempt was made in October, when, amid much fanfare, talks were launched in Libya. But none of the major rebel groups turned up.

The rebels, once united in their desire to see Darfur's decades-long marginalization end, are now hopelessly split. Three rebel factions attended talks in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2006. Conservative estimates put the number of factions now at around 30.