Sudanese refugees demonstrate outside UN meeting in Nairobi

NAIROBI, Nov 18 (AFP) — A few dozen southern Sudanese refugees demonstrated outside the United Nations offices in Nairobi on Thursday as the Security Council held a rare meeting to deliberate on peace in the vast African country.

Protestors demonstrate outside the United Nations (UN) complex in Nairobi where a special session of the UN Security Council is being held to discuss an end to Sudan’s bloody civil war. (AFP).

The protesters, restrained by Kenyan police from entering the sprawling UN facility, carried placards calling for a speedy conclusion of talks in Kenya between Khartoum and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) rebels.

“Give us our peace now. We are tired of waiting for peace, please press them to sign,” some of the placards read.

“We have waited for long enough. We were born in foreign lands and we do not have anywhere to call home, because of the fighting in our country,” teenager Josenp Geng said.

The Sudan civil war has killed at least 1.5 million people and forced four million others to be internally displaced or flee into exile since it erupted in 1983.

At Thursday’s meeting, attended by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni, UN secretary general Kofi Annan pressed the Sudan foes to finalise two years of peace talks in Kenya, which have borne six protocols, ranging from power and wealth sharing to management of the country’s security forces.

The two-day Council meeting in Nairobi, is expected to adopt a resolution that will also put pressure on Khartoum and rebels to end widespread human rights violations in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

A rebellion which erupted in Dafur in February 2003, has flared into a full scale conflict that has left up 70,000 people dead and 1.2 million displaced.