Sudan, new Sudanese rebels work on draft ceasefire: Chad source

NDJAMENA, Dec 15 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and a rebel group from the strife-wracked western Darfur region are working on a draft ceasefire agreement, an official from Chad, which is mediating the talks, told AFP on Wednesday.

Rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement wait at their base in an undisclosed location in North Darfur, Sudan, during a meeting with African Union officers.(AFP).

The official said the draft accord, providing for a cessation of hostilities and the free movement of aid workers in zones controlled by the National Movement for Reconstruction and Development (NMRD), could be signed at a meeting on Thursday.

Chad has agreed to mediate the talks between Khartoum’s delegates and the NMRD, which began Tuesday, to help with the peace talks already underway for Darfur in Nigeria.

The NMRD has recently appeared on the scene in Darfur, as a dissident wing of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which is engaged in peace talks alongside the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) in Abuja, Nigeria. Sources have said that the JEM and SLM had refused to let the NMRD take part in their own lengthy and difficult negotiations with Khartoum.

When rebels in the region on Sudan’s border with Chad took up arms in February last year, the largely Arabic-speaking government cracked down mainly through a proxy militia known as the Janjaweed, blamed by foreign powers and humanitarian organisations for atrocities against local people of black African origin.

The conflict has led to what the United Nations calls the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 70,000 people killed and about 1.6 million driven from their homes.