The United Nations is optimistic Sudan will stick to an accord on a United Nations-African Union force for troubled Darfur, a UN spokesperson said on Wednesday, but some diplomats feared Khartoum had set conditions. After months of negotiations, Sudan accepted on Tuesday a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force.
Sudan on Monday rebuffed a French initiative to host a meeting of key nations to find a solution to Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region on June 25, saying the timing was not right. Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said his country preferred to await the outcome of African Union and United Nations efforts get peace talks back on track.
All sides in the conflict in Darfur are ready to start talks to renegotiate a year-old peace accord rejected by many Darfuris as inadequate, the top United Nations humanitarian chief in Sudan said on Friday. In his last interview before leaving his post after three years, Manuel Aranda da Silva said a descent into anarchy in Darfur is hindering the world’s largest aid operation.
Insecurity, tension and attacks on aid convoys have this year added another 140Â 000 people to an estimated two million people displaced by civil war in Sudan’s western Darfur region, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Many of the camps set up for the homeless are full, the UN mission in Khartoum added in a report.
Gunmen from the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement opened fire on African Union troops in Darfur following a road accident in which a member of their faction was killed, an AU statement said on Thursday. The statement said three AU soldiers were lightly injured by gunfire and 13 AU vehicles seized in the incident on Wednesday.
A United Nations peacekeeper was killed in Darfur, the first UN casualty since the world body began sending small reinforcements to a beleaguered African Union force deployed in the violent western Sudan region, the AU and UN said on Saturday. He was shot by unidentified gunmen who looted his house late on Friday.
More than 110Â 000 people were displaced in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur in the first three months of 2007 as armed confrontations pitting rebels against government forces and their allies continued, a United Nations report said. Those confrontations included a renewal of air attacks, militia attacks on civilians and increasingly violent inter-tribal fighting.
Darfur rebels accused the Sudanese government of bombing a Darfur water station on Saturday and said militiamen and soldiers shot dead four people in a village elsewhere in the country’s war-ravaged west. A Sudanese army spokesperson denied the military had been involved in any incident in either place.
At least 54 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and 11 others injured in a recent attack by cattle raiders in southern Sudan, two English-language newspapers have reported. One newspaper said that heavily armed members of the Toposa tribe near the Sudanese-Kenya border attacked the village of Lauro Payam.
The United Nations and African Union expressed cautious optimism on Thursday over the prospects of a political breakthrough in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan. UN envoy Jan Eliasson and AU envoy Salim Ahmed Salim said they were encouraged by the increase in regional initiatives.
Several Darfur rebel commanders have agreed in principle to hold talks in southern Sudan to unify their positions ahead of possible peace talks with the government, a group of mediators said. Efforts to unify the positions of the many Darfur rebel groups have gathered pace but the fragmentations have derailed the prospects of unity talks.
Sudan said on Thursday it has found no evidence to support the charges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against a government minister suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur. Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi said a probe into the activities of Ahmed Haroun found he had no direct link to any military operations.
Sudanese government aircraft on Sunday attacked the site where rebel leaders in the Darfur region were planning to hold unity talks, wounding several people, one of the faction leaders said. Ahmed Abdel Shafi, head of one of the Sudan Liberation Movement factions, told the media that rebels had brought down one of two helicopter gunships that took part in the attack.
A top Sudanese government official on Monday offered a two-month halt in military operations in strife-torn Darfur to allow for rebel groups to join the peace process. ”The government forces will not conduct military operations in Darfur for the next two months,” presidential adviser Majzub al-Khalifa Ahmed said.
Sudan on Friday dismissed as unjustifiable the threat of slapping new sanctions because of the Darfur conflict, vowing to do everything it can to protect what it sees as its national security. Britain and the United States said this week they would propose new sanctions while Russia, China and South Africa are opposed to any such sanctions.
Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Lam Akol, said on Monday that Khartoum has fully accepted the second phase of a United Nations plan to bolster a peacekeeping operation in Darfur, including the deployment of helicopter gunships. Sudan’s acceptance ”opens the door to new phases”, he said.
The United States urged Sudan on Monday to accept United Nations troops as part of a hybrid peacekeeping force for Darfur as the world body awaited word from the African Union (AU) on reports Khartoum had agreed to a joint deployment. The Saudi state news agency reported that Sudan had signed a deal with the UN and the AU on deployment of African and UN forces.
Sudanese officials working to finalise a deal on United Nations support for the African Union mission in Darfur have recommended Khartoum permit the use of attack helicopters by peacekeepers, the Foreign Ministry said. ”They have made a positive recommendation and it is now up to the leadership,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ali al-Sadig.
South African President Thabo Mbeki wrapped up a two-day visit to Sudan late on Wednesday, expressing optimism that Sudan will agree to the second phase of a proposed three-phase United Nations support package to the embattled Darfur region.
Smooth marble floors and elegant wooden furniture adorn the entrance halls of Khartoum’s brand new luxury hotels, promising weary visitors a fresh welcome to the country emerging from years of civil war. After a north-south peace deal in January 2005 ended Africa’s longest civil war, investors cautiously began to visit bringing promises of cash, development and services.
South African President Thabo Mbeki arrived in Khartoum on Tuesday to join the global push for United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur, amid fears of a regional spillover after clashes between Sudan and Chad. He was expected to press al-Bashir to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur to boost an African Union (AU) force that has failed to stem violence there.
A Sudanese army truck loaded with munitions exploded on Saturday in the capital, Khartoum, where the nearby airport was closed ”as a precaution”, an airport official said. An army spokesperson said the munitions went off because of the ”shaking” of the truck, which was being driven in an area close to the army headquarters in central Khartoum.
African Union (AU) forces need increased United Nations assistance and more sophisticated defensive weapons to cope with the dangers in Darfur, a top AU official said on Wednesday. Sam Ibok, head of the AU team charged with implementing a peace agreement, said the support should include planes.
Unidentified gunmen killed five African Union peacekeepers in the Darfur region of western Sudan, the deadliest single attack against the force in one day since late 2004, an AU spokesperson said on Monday. The five were guarding a water point near the Sudanese border with Chad when they came under fire on Sunday, Noureddine Mezni said.
A Sudanese man armed with a knife hijacked a Sudan Airways plane from Libya and forced it to land at Khartoum airport early on Friday but was later arrested by Special Forces, a civil aviation authority official said. ”The hijacker burst into the pilot’s cabin about one-and-a-half hours from landing …,” Abdel Hafiz Abdel-Rahim said.
Sudan, which has been accused of hindering aid in war-ravaged Darfur, signed an agreement with the United Nations on Wednesday to boost humanitarian work in the western region. Under the agreement, the Khartoum government would take ”fast-track” measures to give better access to aid groups, including speeding up visas for humanitarian workers.
Former Sudanese rebels warned on Tuesday that a peace agreement signed last year is in danger of collapsing if the government rejects its demands following clashes that killed at least 10 people. Eight members of rebel group the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and two Sudanese police officers were killed in the clashes on Saturday in the city of Omdurman.
Sudan’s defence minister hit out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday for proposing tough measures against Khartoum and linking the conflict in Darfur to the spread of extremism in Africa. On Thursday, Blair called on the international community to take a ”far tougher line” against Sudan, and reiterated his belief in what he called the ”worldwide link” between ”global terrorism”.
Washington issued a damning human rights report on Sudan, saying genocide in Darfur continued and blaming both government and rebel forces for attacks in the remote region. It said there was widespread impunity for crimes including torture and that thousands more people had been killed by government forces.
Sudan’s state news agency said Khartoum would try Ali Kushayb, summoned by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a suspect for war crimes in the Darfur region. The ICC has described Kushayb as a militia leader but Khartoum says he is a member of the Popular Defence Forces, a section within the Sudanese army.
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/ 28 February 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused the United States on Wednesday of creating strife in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Red carpets strewn with flowers were laid out for Ahmadinejad when he met Bashir at the start of a two-day visit to Sudan, which like Iran is under US and United Nations pressure.
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/ 28 February 2007
A Sudanese official named as a possible Darfur war criminal said he drew inspiration from the example of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein at his execution in Baghdad in December. Secretary of State for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun is accused having ”jointly committed crimes against the civilian population of Darfur”.