AU chief negotiator on Darfur talks arrives in Nigeria

Nov 26, 2005 (ABUJA) — African Union chief negotiator on the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region Salim Ahmed Salim has arrived in the Nigerian capital for a new round of talks expected to begin next week, an AU spokesman said.

The talks between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups — Sudan’s Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — had been due to start on November 21 but were postponed for “logistical reasons”.

AU spokesman Nouredine Mezni told AFP that the seventh round of negotiations aimed at ending the 33-month-old Darfur conflict was expected to begin in Abuja on Monday.

He said rebel delegates would start arriving from Ndjamena in neighbouring Chad on Saturday while those of the Sudanese government will arrive on Monday.

The war broke out in February 2003 when the rebels began fighting what they say is political and economic marginalisation of the region’s black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.

Up to 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict started with some two million displaced.

(AFP/ST)