Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The South African defence department was "favourably considering" an African Union request for additional military support for its peace mission in the conflict-ridden western Darfur region of the Sudan.

The SA National Defence Force has been asked to provide a contingent comprising an infantry company, an explosives and ordnance demolition team, military observers and staff officers, the department said on Friday.

"The SANDF members of the contingent will assist in the monitoring and observing of compliance with the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement of April 8, and all such agreements in the future," it said in a statement.

They would also contribute "to a secure environment for the delivery of material relief and the return of refugees to their homes and to... the improvement of the security situation throughout Darfur".

Department spokesman Sam Mkhwanazi said the contingent, once approved, was expected to comprise more than 200 South African soldiers, and was expected to be deployed early next year.

"We cannot say with any certainty now, as we are working out the modalities," he said, adding: "The minister (Mosiuoa Lekota) is treating this matter with the utmost urgency."

An advance party would leave for Sudan this month to do "detail planning".

South Africa deployed eight high-ranking soldiers as peacekeepers to the region in July.

The AU was reportedly in the process of increasing the size of its mission in Darfur sevenfold, to over 3000 personnel.

Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed in a 20-month conflict in Darfur, which was recently labelled as genocide by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Close to two million have had to flee their homes and about 400,000 were in need off humanitarian assistance, according to the Associated Press.

Violence broke out last January when two black African rebel groups took up arms over what they claimed was unjust treatment by the government of Sudan and ethnic Arabs.

Pro-government militias then unleashed retaliatory attacks on villages.

The conflict has been termed by United Nations officials as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.