African heads of state to meet on Darfur in Chad

N’DJAMENA, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Five African heads of state will meet in Chad on Wednesday to discuss the civil war in Sudan’s Darfur, while rebels and government officials from Sudan are also expected in the Chadian capital for talks.

A Rwandan soldier belonging to the African Union Force patrols in El-Fasher, Sudan. (AFP).

Officials at Chad’s presidency said on Tuesday the leaders of Sudan, Nigeria, Gabon and Congo Republic would take part in the mini-summit aimed at enforcing an oft-violated ceasefire in the western region of Darfur.

The summit is being hosted by Chad’s President Idriss Deby.

A two-year conflict in Darfur has killed at least 70,000 people and forced around 2 million people from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled across the border into neighbouring Chad.

Representatives of Darfur’s two main rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) — were also expected in N’Djamena for talks with Sudanese government officials, Chad’s presidency said.

Najib Abdulwahab, state minister for foreign affairs in Sudan, said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir would leave for Chad on Wednesday.

He said the talks would be held “in the context of the ongoing African efforts to resolve the situation in Darfur through peaceful means”.

After years of tribal conflict over scarce resources in arid Darfur, the SLM and the JEM took up arms in February 2003, complaining of discrimination and harassment of African villagers by Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.

The Janjaweed have been accused of a campaign of looting, burning, killing and rape in Darfur. The government says it recruited militias to fight the rebellion but not the Janjaweed, which it calls outlaws.

It has committed to disarm the Janjaweed in several agreements with rebels and the United Nations.

Previous agreements to stop fighting and disarm have been repeatedly flouted by both sides and there have been close to 100 confirmed ceasefire violations since late last year.

A U.N. commission of inquiry found last month that Darfur’s civilian population had suffered war crimes at the hands of Arab militia and that these may amount to crimes against humanity, although it stopped short of using the term genocide.

(Additional reporting by Nima Elbagir in Khartoum)