Sudan, rebels call for international push for aid
By John Acher
OSLO, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and rebels from the country’s west and south urged the international community on Monday to pressure all sides toward peace so aid can begin to flow to civilians caught in the fighting.
Co-hosts Norway and Italy opened a two-day international conference on aid for Sudan that Oslo said brings together for the first time representatives from the Sudanese government and three rebels groups engaged in conflicts that have created refugee crises and, combined, killed more than 2 million people.
“We need action and great efforts up to the level of the crisis and the problems in Darfur,” said Ahmed Hussein, head of delegation from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
“People are dying. We are asking the international community to put pressure on Sudan (to reach a peace deal).”
The leader of the Sudan government delegation, Yahia Hussien Babiker Mohamed, told reporters: “We want the international community to mount pressure on the rebel groups to reach a political settlement.”
The state minister at the Presidency of the Republic of Sudan said he believed a peace deal could be signed soon but added: “It takes two to tango. Hopefully we will get it shortly.”
African Union-sponsored talks on Darfur in Abuja, Nigeria, broke down earlier this month, with the rebels and government far apart on key issues, including security. They are set to resume in October.
PEACE PARTNER
About 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes and 50,000 have died in the fighting since the Darfur conflict began in February 2003. The United Nations has said the conflict has produced one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises. The United States has called the violence genocide.
In the south, rebels and government forces have battled for nearly two decades in a war that has killed 2 million people. Both sides have taken steps toward peace in talks in Naivasha, Kenya that are set to resume next month.
But the situation in the south remains critical with hundreds of thousands of refugees expected to travel back to villages ravaged by war.
U.N. experts say despite intense media coverage and diplomatic pressure, rich donor nations have yet to respond with sufficient funds to save lives in Sudan.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said as of Aug. 25, Sudan efforts remained underfunded, with $434 million out of an appeal for $722 million still unmet.
Norway, which has offered to host a donors’ conference, urged swift action to bring peace to open the aid tap.
“Our assistance to Sudan will depend on your ability to bring forward the peace agenda to a swift and successful completion,” Norway’s Minister of International Development Hilde Frafjord Johnson said.
Johnson said that a comprehensive peace deal would need to be in place before a donors’ conference could be held.
“The real political solution to the Darfur crisis is to be found within the framework of the overall peace agreement. To put it simply, the road to peace in Darfur goes through Naivasha,” Johnson said in an address to the gathering, in reference to the North-South Sudan talks in Kenya.
Besides the JEM, representatives of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), Norway and 18 other countries, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank attended the Oslo meeting.