African Union to hold emergency meeting on Chad-Sudan crisis

Jan 3, 2006 (LAGOS) — Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo would convened a special emergency meeting of selected African leaders to discuss the crisis between Chad and Sudan, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported on Tuesday.

Oluremi Oyo, senior special assistant to President Obasanjo on media, was quoted as saying that the one-day meeting was scheduled for Tripoli, Libya on Wednesday.

Obasanjo met Ousmane Mansur, an envoy of Libyan leader Omar Muammar Ghaddafi, at his hometown Ota, Ogun State, on Monday. The envoy delivered a message to Obasanjo who is also chairman of the African Union (AU) in connection with the December 18 alleged attack on Adre, a town in northern Chad by rebels from Sudan.

Oyo said Obasanjo had invited a selected number of heads of states, including the neighbors of both Chad and Sudan to attend the meeting.

The meeting is expected to receive and deliberate on the special AU committee report on the differences between Chad and Sudan. The committee was set up after the attacks.

Chadian President Idris Derby flew Nigeria to pay a visit to Obasanjo on December 27 personally delivering his complaint on the alleged attacks to the AU chairman.

Derby said his country would not accept the next extraordinary summit of AU to be held in Khartoum on January 23-24.

(Xinhua/ST)