Sudan has signed a ceasefire with rebels from the western Darfur region in talks hoping to end violence that UN officials have described as ethnic cleansing, a state minister said on Thursday.
"They signed a humanitarian ceasefire in N'Djamena last night for the opening up of aid corridors so that aid can be distributed to those in need," Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, state minister for foreign affairs, said.
Peace talks in the Chadian capital N'Djamena are continuing with two rebel groups who launched a revolt in February last year accusing the Khartoum government of arming Arab militias in order to loot and burn African villages.
Wahab said the ceasefire would take immediate effect.
"This will be ongoing while the two sides seek to find a political resolution to the conflict," he added.
On Wednesday UN chief Kofi Annan warned a Rwanda-style genocide may be in the making in arid Darfur and said international military force could be needed -- a suggestion that was at once rejected by the Khartoum government.
The UN estimates more than 1 million people have been affected by the conflict in Darfur. Some 110,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Chad.
Two senior UN officials have described the killing and looting as a "scorched earth" campaign and "ethnic cleansing."
Both said Khartoum had done nothing to stop the bloodshed and destruction.
Husam Bashir, director of the Sudanese Human Rights Group in Khartoum, said he hoped the ceasefire would translate on the ground.
He cited concerns such as that marauding militias aligned to both sides had become autonomous in their killing raids.
"We hope that it is going to be put into effect on the ground by both parties, because supporters of the parties are not in uniform," he said.
Rights groups say government-armed militias have taken on a life of their own, raping, killing and looting at random. The government says they are outlaws and denies any link with them.
US President George W. Bush on Wednesday condemned the atrocities by Arab militias in Darfur.
Bush suggested Washington would not normalize relations with Sudan until it stopped the conflict.
Washington still lists Sudan as a "state sponsor of terrorism," but had said it could reconsider the listing if a separate peace deal currently being negotiated to end more than two decades of civil war in southern Sudan was signed.
A southern rebel official said on Wednesday a deal could be reached within three days to end the conflict that broadly pits the Islamist government against rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south, which has claimed some 2 million lives.
But Bashir said a southern peace deal would be meaningless if the fighting continued in Darfur.
"By stopping war in one area while it continues elsewhere you are not going to have peace or development," he said.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
RSS