Punishing Sudan

last updated 8 January 2015

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The African Union refused this week to allow Sudan to take over its chairmanship, saying the country had failed to stop the genocide in Darfur. Last year, African leaders told Sudan it could chair the group in 2007 if it took steps to stop the fighting and ethnic cleansing that has killed 400,000 and displaced 2 million. Since then, though, the war has spread to neighboring Chad and Central African Republic. Many aid agencies accuse the Sudanese government of supplying the Arab Janjaweed militias that lay waste to black villages. Sudan has said repeatedly that it would allow a U.N. peacekeeping force into Darfur, only to renege each time. The African Union picked Ghana to chair the group this year.