History will regard the situation in Darfur, Sudan, as an African holocaust if the international community fails to protect innocent lives. The African Union’s (AU) decision late last week to extend its mandate in Darfur has bought just three more months for the rest of the world to persuade Sudanese leaders not to start another round of slaughter.

Khartoum still refuses to agree to let United Nations peacekeepers take over from the AU troops when they go home. The UN Security Council voted last month to deploy 20,000 peace­keepers to replace the AU troops; the Sudanese government immediately rejected that resolution and announced that the AU had no authority to transfer its mission to the UN.