Khartoum said on Monday it will next week start disarming militias accused of carrying out atrocities in the western Darfur region.
The process of disarming all militias, including the Janjaweed, will ”begin on May 15 and President Omar al-Beshir has already instructed the armed forces to commence with this operation”, said Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, Khartoum’s chief negotiator on Darfur.
Speaking to reporters upon his return from a peace-deal signing in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Ahmed stressed that the African Union would oversee the implementation of the agreement aimed at ending the conflict in western Sudan.
”The AU will guarantee implementation of the peace agreement and the related mechanisms and arrangements and will be assisted by the international community,” he said, adding that AU forces would remain in the region to monitor the observance of the ceasefire.
”The process of implementation will be collective and the gains will be for all people of the region,” Ahmed told reporters.
Khartoum and the main rebel faction of the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM), led by Minni Minnawi, signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in Abuja, Nigeria on Friday.
But another rebel group, the Islamist Justice and Equality Movement, and a smaller faction of the divided SLM, led by Abdelwahid al-Nur, refused to sign the United Nations-sponsored deal.
Darfur, an arid desert region of western Sudan the size of France, erupted into civil war in early 2003 when armed local movements began fighting the Arab-led government in Khartoum, demanding more autonomy for the region.
In response, the Sudanese regime unleashed the Arab Janjaweed militia to carry out brutal attacks on Darfur’s largely black African population. The war has caused at least 180 000 deaths and left 2,4-million people homeless. — AFP
