By Peter Apps LONDON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Aid agencies working in Sudan's Darfur hope incoming United Nations and African Union peacekeepers will help protect them, but there are also fears they could spark new violence against unarmed relief staff. The 26,000-person hybrid force is due to arrive in Darfur in the coming months against a backdrop of escalating violence targeting the world's largest humanitarian relief operation. Gunman killed three U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) drivers in the last week, while agency compounds have been raided, staff abducted and equipment stolen. The new peacekeepers -- mainly African infantry with a handful of troops from other nations -- will replace a much smaller African Union force that has largely failed to halt violence in a region the size of France. Aid agencies -- some of whom have lobbied for years for U.N. peacekeepers -- say their situation now is so bad that they have to withdraw from some areas and cut back operations. Some reports suggest malnutrition rates are rising as a result. "The way it is now for humanitarian agencies cannot continue," former U.N. undersecretary general Jan Egeland, one of the strongest advocates for the force, told Reuters last month. "When the humanitarians or the refugees themselves say they are threatened, the force has to deploy protectively and defend. And fight, if necessary." International experts say some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled their homes in Darfur since 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, which in turn mobilised predominantly Arab militias to squelch the revolt. Khartoum, which long resisted demands for a U.N. force, says only 9,000 are dead and the crisis has been exaggerated. While many aid workers accuse the government of trying to frustrate their work, they blame most attacks on rebel groups and bandits intent on stealing equipment and vehicles, a practice experts say has become almost an industry in Darfur. Aid groups hope more peacekeepers might reduce that risk. But at the same time, if the larger force takes more aggressive action than its AU predecessor it may make enemies -- either militia or rebels -- who may hit aid workers as a soft target. KEEPING SEPARATE "Of course it is possible and you can expect anything," said Francois Grignon, Africa project director for the International Crisis Group. "It is a risk with all peacekeeping operations. They will have to co-operate in terms of security." He said the new force risked simply being too weak to change the situation on the ground, particularly if peace talks in Libya later this month failed to produce a concrete peace deal. Former U.N. aid chief Egeland said there had been incidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere in West Africa where aid workers had been attacked or compounds burnt in retaliation for action by peacekeepers. "We have been discussing that risk for years," he said. "Generally, it has been exaggerated. ... In the short term it may decrease security but in the long-term hopefully it will help." Experts say it is important the aid effort maintains its distance from the peacekeepers if it is to maintain any impression of neutrality and work with all sides. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Western and U.N. aid agencies sent in large missions. Later that year, a truck bomb attack on the U.N. compound killed 22. Other attacks, kidnappings and killings forced most aid groups out. "I think our mistake our was to send in so many people so fast on the back of an invasion force who looked just like us," Egeland said. "That is one of the reasons it is so important that the force in Darfur looks and feels African." A much better equipped European Union force will be deployed across the border in neighbouring Chad and Central African Republic, but will not be authorised to cross into Darfur. Subject to eventual Sudanese approval, there will be a small Western component to the Darfur force, primarily a battalion of 400 Norwegian and Swedish army engineers. Their main remit will be building camps and bases for the main force. Their commander said they could help with sanitation and construction in refugee camps but would not do so unless asked by the main aid effort for fear of blurring the lines. " We can't just walk in and take over their missions," said Lieutenant Colonel Anstein Aasen in Oslo. "They have to to ask us and not the other way around."
