Darfur needs development, not peacekeepers -Sudan

SINGAPORE, Sep 18 (Reuters) Sudan's finance minister said today that money earmarked by the United Nations for peacekeepers would be better spent on development in the country's war-torn Darfur region.

Sudanese civil society groups marched to the United Nations offices in Khartoum yesterday to oppose new peacekeepers and called on the UN to reallocate funds earmarked for peacekeepers towards humanitarian aid and development.

''People have focused on bringing the peacekeepers to Darfur, when we think what Darfur needs is not peacekeepers ...

What Darfur needs most is resources for water, resources for schools, for hospitals,'' Sudanese Finance Minister Lual Deng said.

''These resources, if they could be used in order to develop Darfur, it would be much better,'' he told a news conference at the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings.

He said the government was jointly assessing Darfur's needs with the World Bank, the UN and the African Development Bank.

Western leaders, some African presidents and international humanitarian groups say a UN force is the only way to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, where more than 2 million people have been displaced by fighting between government troops, rebels and militias.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has repeatedly said he would not accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur. The mandate of an African Union peace monitoring force ends on September 30.

Reuters PB VP1347