“Norway and Sweden have for a long time been making preparations to support UN efforts in Darfur. However, due to the Government of Sudan’s opposition, it has become impossible to maintain our offer to make a joint Norwegian-Swedish contribution to the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). We therefore regret that we are now compelled to withdraw our offer to provide a joint engineering unit to this important mission,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
11/01/2008 :: The Norwegian-Swedish engineering unit was to help to provide necessary infrastructure in the early stages of the joint UN-AU mission in Darfur. The UN has been particularly eager to include the Norwegian-Swedish unit in the operation. (See press release)