Paper long abstract:

Since, 2003 when hostilities broke out in Darfur region of Western Sudan, the nascent African Union has been in the forefront of international community efforts at restoring peace to this trouble region. The continental organization has deployed its ceasefire monitoring commission, peacekeeping force and under Nigeria leadership broker peace agreement between the warring parties. Instead of abating the ember of violence in Darfur is rising.

From all indications the Darfur Peace Accord [DPA] signed in 2006, brokered in Abuja, Nigeria is no longer tenable, and the peace process has stalled. The ceasefire commission is ineffective and worst still the African Union Mission in Darfur [AMIS] is no longer capable of ensuring the security of its personnel, talk less of protecting civilians caught up in the crossfire. It has become quite clear that the African union has failed in Darfur; this apparently reinforces the call for the United Nations to intervene in the crisis.

Good as the intention was, the UN also has the potential to fail in Darfur if it did not take into consideration those factors that contributed to the ineffectiveness of AU peacekeeping mission. The paper argues that rather than jumping into the fray, the UN needs to take into cognizance those factors that prove to be the Achilles heel of the AU mission in Darfur.