ABUJA, Aug 26 (AFP) - A first 150-strong company of Nigerian troops is to set off soon for the war-torn region of Darfur in western Sudan withing two days to protect ceasefire monitors, Nigeria's foreign minister said Thursday.
"There is already the deployment of part of that protection force and the Nigerian contigent should be leaving within the next 48 hours," Olu Adeniji told reporters covering African Union-sponsored peace talks in Abuja.
The troops are due to join a 150-strong Rwandan detachment already in Darfur under African Union command.
Based in El-Fasher in northern Darfur and led by a Nigerian general, the joint force will protect AU observers.
The African Union is putting pressure on Sudan to allow a larger force, numbering around 2,000 troops, to deploy to the area to oversee a tentative peace process launched this week at talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
But Sudanese negotiators insist that such a force could only come into the country as part of a negotiated deal to demobilise and disarm Darfur's two rebel groups, and not to protect civilians or aid shipments.
Darfur plunged into war in February last year, when black African rebel groups rose up against the government in Khartoum.
Part of Khartoum's response to the uprising was to use a proxy militia, the Janjaweed, to crush it.
Between 30,000 and 50,000 people have been killed in the 18-month conflict and some 1.4 million internally displaced or forced to seek refuge in neighbouring Chad.