Darfur rebels call for delay to peace talks

CAIRO, Aug 9 (AFP) — The main ethnic minority rebel group in Sudan’s war-ravaged western Darfur province called Tuesday for peace talks due to start later this month to be delayed until October

Chief mediator Salim Ahmed Salim (L) and African Union (AU) secretary general Alpha Konare (R) attend a summit on Darfur crisis in Abuja. (AFP).

“For internal reasons and taking into consideration preparations for our general assembly, we have officially proposed for talks to resume in the first week of October,” Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) spokesman Mahjub Hussein said in a statement.

African Union sponsored peace talks between Khartoum, the SLM and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement were due to resume in the Nigerian capital Abuja on August 24.

Violence broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when a rebel uprising led Khartoum to unleash Arab militias known as the Janjaweed in a scorched-earth campaign.

The conflict has claimed between 180,000 and 300,000 lives, displaced around 2.4 million people and sent more than 200,000 fleeing to neighbouring Chad, sparking one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.