Sudan seeks talks with new rebel groups in Darfur: SUNA

KHARTOUM, Dec 6 (AFP) — Sudan’s government is to seek talks with new rebel groups now emerging in Darfur to try to persuade them to observe a fragile ceasefire, the official SUNA news agency said on Monday.

Members of Sudan Liberation Army walk with their rifles at Ashma village 30 km (19 miles) from Nyala, south Darfur, October 6, 2004. (Reuters).

“Dialogue with the new rebel movements in Darfur will centre on security because they begin to pose a security threat to the IDPs (internally displaced persons) and refugees and launch attacks on tribes and public property,” it quoted Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying.

The minister was speaking on leaving a meeting on Darfur involving the government, the UN secretary general’s special representative Jan Pronk and the African Union, the agency said.

Ismail said Khartoum was trying to start talks with the Reform and Development Movement, using neighbouring Chad as a channel of communication.

The minister said the new movement had split from one of the two main rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement, and was made up of between 1,000 and 3,000 fighters from the Zaghawah tribe.

Talks would be restricted to security and humanitarian issues related to IDPs, refugees and humanitarian convoys to “ensure their safe arrival at destinations,” said Ismail.

Hostilities have flared in Darfur in recent weeks, with the government and rebels both refusing to take responsibility for violations of a ceasefire that was signed in April 2004.

More than 70,000 people have been killed or have died from hunger and disease in the Darfur area since the revolt erupted in February 2003, according to the UN. Another 1.5 million have been displaced.