Norway to host donor conference for Sudan in March- Arab League

CAIRO, Dec 6 (AFP) — Norway is to host a donor conference in March to finance reconstruction projects in war-battered Sudan, an Arab League official said.

A displaced Sudanese woman carries a bucket of water in the Abu Shouk camp on the outskirts of the northern Darfur town of El-Fasher. (AFP).

“An international conference of donor countries for Sudan is planned for March 2005 in Oslo,” Samir Hosni, the League’s official in charge of Sudanese affairs, told reporters.

The announcement came after a visiting Norwegian foreign ministry envoy held talks with Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa to prepare for the conference, which will follow a preparatory session in February, also in Oslo.

Ravaged by civil conflict, Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its foreign debt is estimated at 64 billion dollars, with 40 percent of the total owed to Arab states, according to the League official.

Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the main southern rebel chief, John Garang, on Monday resumed high-level talks in Kenya aimed at clinching a peace deal by year-end to halt Africa’s longest civil war.

In a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur, more than 70,000 people have been killed or have died from hunger and disease since a revolt erupted in February 2003, according to UN figures.

Another 1.5 million people have been displaced by the conflict, creating what the United Nations terms the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.