Sudan said it ordered the military to stop fighting in the bloodied Darfur region even as rebels alleged new attacks and said they would uphold a boycott of stalemated peace talks.
"Orders were given last night to all the commanders to stop fighting," Sudan government delegation spokesman Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim said on Thursday by phone from the African Union-hosted conference in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.
PHOTO: AFP
Ibrahim said he wasn't sure if fighting had actually stopped in Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have died and nearly 2 million left homeless in a two-year crisis the UN has branded the world's gravest.
Rebels boycotted the latest round of talks on Monday over allegations of a new offensive against them, saying they would not talk with government mediators until the attacks stopped.
The insurgents said attacks continued on Thursday, citing field reports from the vast western Darfur region.
Bahar Ibrahim, spokesman for the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army, said government troops attacked the town of Tawila and several villages in northern Darfur.
"The government as of this morning is continuing its attacks," he said.
"Nothing has changed in the situation to make us return to the talks," said Ahmed Tugod Lissan of Sudan's other main rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement.
On Wednesday, the top government negotiator, Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmad, said Sudan had accepted a proposal by African Union medi-ators to stop fighting if rebels withdrew from positions captured since the signing of an April cease-fire deal.
Delegates from the two rebel movements said they had received no formal notification of any such AU proposal and couldn't comment on it.
There is no official reckoning of the overall toll of the war, which was sparked in February last year when two non-Arab African rebel groups took up arms to fight for more power and resources from the Arab-dominated Khartoum government.
The Sudanese government responded by backing an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, which is accused of targeting civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.
Disease and hunger have killed 70,000 people in the western Darfur region since March, the World Health Organization says. Nearly 2 million are believed to have fled their homes since Darfur fell into crisis.
The US has accused Sudan's government of failing to take sufficient steps to rein in the Janjaweed, who are alleged to have committed genocide in Darfur.
A promised 3,000-member AU peace deployment for Darfur has so far managed to put some 800 soldiers and 100 observers in the field.
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