FACTBOX: Peacekeeping in Africa

(Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region on Thursday. Here are some details on international peacekeeping in Africa.

* SUDAN, DARFUR: (UNAMID) (From 2007)

-- In 2007 the U.N. Security Council finally authorized 26,000 troops and police for the operation known as UNAMID.

-- The force has been struggling to stabilize the situation. Only some 9,500 troops and police have been deployed out of a planned force of 26,000, partly due to Khartoum's insistence that most peacekeepers be Africans.

-- Adding to UNAMID's difficulties, troop contributing countries have failed to provide badly-needed helicopters and other equipment for the mission.

* SUDAN, SOUTH: (UNIMIS) (From 2005)

-- The Security Council authorized a peacekeeping force for southern Sudan in March 2005 to monitor an agreement between Khartoum and southern rebels ending a 21-year civil war that killed 2 million people and forced 4 million from their homes.

-- UNIMIS numbers 9,938 total uniformed personnel, including 8,721 troops.

-- UNMIS peacekeepers have faced accusations of hiding in their barracks instead of protecting Sudanese civilians during a flare-up of clashes in the Abyei region in May.

* CHAD: EUFor (From 2008)

-- The European Union's EUFor force has around 3,200 troops in eastern Chad and northern Central African Republic. Its full strength is set at 3,700 and it was set up to protect civilians and aid operations rather than as a peacekeeping mission.

-- But that is a tiny force to protect nearly half a million Sudanese and Chadians forced from their homes by fighting in all three countries, mostly from Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region.

-- EUFor is designed to complement a hybrid AU-UN force deploying in Darfur to help end several years of civil war fuelled by ethnic divisions.

* DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: (MONUC) (From 1999)

-- The U.N. maintains the largest peacekeeping force in the world, with 18,446 uniformed personnel including 16,700 troops, deployed in Congo to help a national army being put together from former warring rebel and militia groups.

-- Around 125 peacekeepers have been killed since 1999.