Egypt to host May summit on Darfur -paper

CAIRO, May 6 (Reuters) – Egypt will host a five-way summit in May to discuss the consequences of a United Nations resolution on bringing to justice people suspected of war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, an Egyptian newspaper said on Friday.

Displaced Sudanese women from the Darfur region wait for relief food southeast of Khartoum, February 19, 2005. (Reuters).

Al-Ahram said the leaders of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria and Chad would attend the summit on May 15-16. The newspaper said they would also discuss ways to contain the humanitarian situation in Darfur, where more than 2 million people have been displaced by a conflict that began in early 2003.

A Darfur summit scheduled for April in Egypt was cancelled because some of the leaders could not attend.

“Sudan has reiterated anew its insistence on trying those suspected of committing these crimes in front of Sudanese justice, and the holding of fair and transparent trials for any suspect,” the semi-official al-Ahram said.

It did not give a source. The summit will be held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The U.N. Security Council in March referred Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But it also left the door open for Sudan to hold its own trials as long as they were credible.

Darfur rebels launched an uprising more than two years ago against what they say is government discrimination in favour of Arab tribes.

The United Nations’s top human rights body in April condemned “widespread and systematic” violations in Darfur.

The Commission on Human Rights stopped short of condemning Sudan over allegations of widespread abuse, despite a U.N. report accusing Sudanese troops and Arab militia of engaging in a campaign of violence that included rape and killing.

“The summit … will discuss ways to contain the situation in the Sudanese region, benefiting from the Naivasha agreement … in finding a political frame for agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebel movements,” al-Ahram said.

The Naivasha agreement signed in January ended 21 years of civil war between the government and rebels in southern Sudan.