Four South African peacekeepers who were kidnapped in Darfur over a week ago will be released after election results are out.
Four South African peacekeepers have been kidnapped in Sudan’s Darfur region, in the largest single abduction of foreigners in the war-torn region.
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/ 25 February 2010
"Darfur is now at peace," Sudan President Omar al-Bashir said on Wednesday of the seven-year conflict that devastated the region.
Sudan is a tough nut to crack. There are two peacekeeping missions — one a joint African Union-United Nations effort set to become the world’s biggest, the other a UN mission keeping a lid on what had been Africa’s longest-running civil war in southern Sudan — and a strong central government that enjoys the support of the world’s emerging superpower, China.
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/ 26 October 2007
Darfur’s two main rebel groups will not attend United Nations-African Union mediated peace talks in Libya, their leaders said on Friday, dashing any chance of a peace deal to end four-and-a-half years of conflict. ”We decided not to go,” said Justice and Equality Movement chief negotiator Ahmed Tugod Lissan.
A group of elder statesmen, including former US president Jimmy Carter and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, urged all sides in Darfur’s bloodshed to reach a peace deal as they began a tour on Tuesday of the war-torn region. The visit comes days after rebels overran an African Union peacekeeping base in northern Darfur.
The 1 000 Darfur rebels waited until sunset, the end of the Ramadan fast, to begin their assault. Some of the outgunned African peacekeepers, caught by surprise, fought back. Others fled into the scrublands, and at the end 10 of them were dead.
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/ 5 September 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the Darfur region of western Sudan on Wednesday, promising to step up pressure for a political solution to the festering conflict. Ban told journalists he would push for progress in peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups.
Some of its men have not been paid for four months and, with few helicopters or troop carriers, it has to rely on diplomacy to keep the peace, but the beleaguered African Union force in Darfur insists it is still making a difference. The force has paid a high price for its efforts to stem the violence in Darfur, which has killed at least 200 000 people.
A May deal that was supposed to help end the conflict in Darfur has instead sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions, according to aid groups, the United Nations and beleaguered African Union peacekeepers. Fresh clashes have left countless dead in the last two months and displaced nearly 50 000 people.