Sudan parliament extends state of emergency

KHARTOUM, Dec 21 (AFP) — Sudan’s parliament approved a one-year extension of the five-year-old state of emergency amid ongoing security concerns in Darfur and in the south, the official SUNA news agency reported Tuesday.

Security and defence committee chairman Mohammed Bakheit was quoted as saying that parliament had also passed Monday President Omar al-Beshir’s request for an extension on the grounds that opposition groups were threatening the country’s oil infrastructure in the north and east.

The parliament also renewed its own tenure, as well
as those of several other government institutions.

Some members of the opposition had blasted Beshir’s effort to renew the state of emergency as the “continuation of an anti-democracy policy”.

Nairobi, which has been the main broker between Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels, said Monday it was optmistic a comprehensive peace agreement would be reached by the end of the year, putting an end to Africa’s longest-running civil war.

At least 1.5 million people have been killed and over four million others displaced by the war, which erupted in 1983 when the mainly Christian and animist south took up arms to end domination by the Arabised Muslim north.

But in the country’s other main area of conflict, the western region of Darfur, fighting is still raging and Nigeria talks to end the almost two-year-old conflict are floundering.

The Darfur conflict, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.5 million displaced, has been described by the United Nations as the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.