African mission to check ceasefire in Darfur

N’DJAMENA, Feb 18 (AFP) — The joint ceasefire Commission on Darfur is to send a fact-finding team to verify positions occupied by the opposing sides with a view to mapping out a separation plan and ensure the truce is being honoured.

The move was announced late Thursday at the end of a meeting here of the commission headed by Chadian President Idriss Deby and the head of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare.

The commission decided “to send a team on the ground in Darfur to verify the positions occupied by the forces present there, with a view to drawing up a plan to separate these forces and also to verify the effectiveness of the ceasefire declaration by the parties,” the meeting’s final communique said.

No timetable was mentioned in the text for the deployment of the group into the western Darfur region of Sudan, torn by strife and a humanitarian crisis.

Several African leaders wrapped up summit talks here Wednesday, agreeing on steps to ensure respect of a ceasefire in Darfur.

They urged the sending of the fact-finding team and called on the parties “to scrupulously respect the Ndjamena ceasefire accord of April 8, 2004 and the Abuja protocol of November 2004 on improving the humanitarian situation and bolstering security in Darfur.”

They also took note of “the commitments made before them by (Sudanese) President (Omar) el-Beshir during this summit.”

There were no details given of El-Beshir’s commitments but the Sudanese leader told his peers that he had “withdrawn all his bombers from Darfur”.

That N’djamena gathering brought together Presidents Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo Republic, Chad’s Idriss Deby and Konare, a former president of Mali.