Sudan and rebels seek humanitarian deal for Darfur amid kidnapping claims

ABUJA, Aug 30 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and its rebel foes returned to the negotiating table as African Union-led attempts to reach a deal on ending Darfur’s humanitarian crisis were overshadowed by kidnapping claims. .

On their eighth day of talks, delegates to the AU peace conference in Abuja struggled to reach agreement on the first agenda item: how to ensure the safety of the Darfur region’s 1.2 million displaced people.

African mediators have drawn up a draft deal on the issue in the hope of making concrete progress before the UN Security Council meets on Thursday to hear what is likely to be a critical assessment of Sudan’s behaviour.

The draft deals primarily with ensuring access to Darfur for aid workers and beefing up international monitoring of rights abuses.

Khartoum’s forces, and its Janjaweed Arab militia allies, stand accused of killing, raping and intimidating members of Darfur’s black African minorities, whom the government sees as sympathetic to the area’s two rebel groups.

AU Commission spokesman Assane Ba had said he was hopeful of reaching a consensus agreement on an AU proposal for resolving the humanitarian crisis.

But the meeting adjourned at 7:20 pm (1820 GMT) to allow the parties to bring amendments to the draft, and the later session of talks scheduled for 9 pm was postponed until 10 am on Wednesday, officials told AFP.

“The postponement is due to the length of time it would take AU mediators to discuss the amendments and objections brought by each of the parties to the draft agreement,” a Nigerian mediator said.

Another mediator said AU and UN officials had held almost 90 minutes of talks with the Khartoum delegation, before sitting down for talks with the two rebel movements.

Whatever progress is made by the parties at their Abuja meeting risks being lost amid a war of words over the latest reports of kidnappings and atrocities coming out of Sudan’s western province of Darfur.

The Sudanese government said Tuesday that rebels had kidnapped 22 health workers involved in a mass vaccination programme in northern Darfur.

The United Nations’ World Food Programme says eight Sudanese nationals working for the WFP and the Red Crescent went missing over the weekend in Darfur. The government said that these too had been abducted.

Rebel leaders denied that their forces were involved in any kidnappings.

“It’s all propaganda by the government in Khartoum. Let them prove the allegations,” said Ahmed Mohammed Tugod, chief negotiator of the Justice and Equality Movement at the Abuja talks.

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, the conference host and current chairman of the African Union, said Monday that AU ceasefire monitors had confirmed a rebel claim of a government attack on a Darfur village.

“He has written to President Omar Hassan el-Bashir asking him to ensure that all attacks by government forces and the Janjaweed cease forthwith,” a Nigerian statement said, warning the government not to undermine the peace process.

Rebels said that 64 civilians were murdered in the August 26 attack on the village of Yassin in southern Darfur. Khartoum has denied involvement.

The United Nations estimates that such attacks have left more than 30,000 people dead and forced 1.4 million to flee to makeshift, insanitary refugee camps, some of them in neighbouring Chad.

The UN Security Council is due on Thursday to examine the evolution of the situation in Darfur, a month after it gave the Sudanese government 30 days to re-establish security in Darfur and aid the population.

The UN’s special envoy for the conflict, Jan Pronk, is expected to brief the Security Council on Thursday, after which member states may choose to take action against Sudan — although sanctions appeared unlikely in the short-term.

The Sudanese minister for humanitarian affairs, Mohammed Yusuf, meanwhile denied that the UN had imposed an August 30 deadline for it to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Speaking after the AU-led talks adjourned, he told reporters: “I don’t believe there is an ultimatum. I believe there is a process agreed with the UN and that process has to come to an end after 90 days,” the journalists said.

“What is to be seen at the end of the 30 days is the progress expected to have been made on the ground. The process is continuing and we believe the end of it will be by solving the problem between the government and the rebels.”