Zamzam, Sudan ? Armed with heavy automatic rifles and a rocket launcher, 18 African Union peacekeepers warily patrol Zamzam, a sprawling camp of thatched huts and makeshift tents where some 40,000 people have sought refuge from Darfur’s violence.

Their numbers were no match for the thousands of armed men in the area from a dozen warring factions.

The AU is desperately short on men and material and viewed with increasing suspicion among some of the Sudanese it was sent to protect. Despite a peace accord between the government and rebel groups, the United Nations and aid groups say violence has worsened in the past few weeks – leaving many to wonder whether the international community can bring calm to the battle-scarred land.

The main faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement originally signed the May 5 accord with Sudan’s government, but a splinter faction held out until Thursday, along with a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement.

The U.N. Security Council and the AU have agreed that a U.N. force should take over operations in Darfur and that the 7,000 African troops now on the ground in Darfur must be reinforced quickly. But Khartoum has been reluctant to accept a U.N. force, and security in the region remains precarious.

“With all the splinter rebel groups, the Janjaweed controlled by the Sudanese army and those who act own their own, there are maybe 20 armed factions in this zone,” said Lt. Col. Mohammed Sallam, an Egyptian officer who commands AU military operations in the Zamzam area.

“When you get in an ambush, you know you are being shot at, but you never know by who.”

Decades of low-level clashes in Darfur over land and water erupted in early 2003 when rebel groups of ethnic Africans rose up against the Arab-led government in Khartoum.