Sudan govt, southern rebels extend truce 3 months

Source: Reuters

NAIROBI, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and main southern rebels have signed a three-month truce extension but not set a date to resume talks to end Africa’s longest-running civil war, the chief mediator said on Tuesday.

Despite making strides towards ending 21 years of fighting, Khartoum’s Islamist government and rebels from the south have made slow progress in trying to agree on a permanent ceasefire.

“The cessation of hostilities agreement was signed yesterday in Nairobi by the Sudanese ambassador to Kenya Ali Numeiri and Commander Taban Deng of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army),” said Lazarus Sumbeiywo, the Kenyan chief mediator.

He said the ceasefire had been extended to Nov. 30.

Sumbeiywo told Reuters no date had been set for more talks between the two sides, adding: “The status is that we are waiting for the parties.”

The drawn-out peace process in Sudan’s oil-rich south has been increasingly overshadowed by conflict in its western region of Darfur, which has created what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The southern ceasefire was signed by the SPLA and the government in 2002. However, regional analysts and truce monitoring teams say violence by both sides has continued in the vast, remote south.

More than two million people have been killed, mainly through hunger and disease, since the SPLA demanded greater autonomy and took up arms against the government in 1983.