Ghana boosts support for peacekeeping

Ghana has deployed a unit of troops to support the ongoing U.N. peacekeeping operations in Chad and the Central African Republic.

The U.N. mission, known as Minurcat, said 131 soldiers from Ghana are in transit to eastern Chad, where rebel violence is threatening camps for refugees and internally displaced people, the United Nations reported.

With the additional Ghanaian unit, the U.N. mission now includes more than 800 soldiers from Ghana. The deployment comes at a time when rebel violence in the region continues to escalate as more militants spill over the border into Chad from the Darfur region of Sudan.

The eastern Chad region is also stressed by more than 290,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 180,000 internally displaced people among thousands more in desperate need of assistance.