African leaders work on new summit for Darfur crisis

CAIRO, Feb 28 (AFP) — African leaders are working to set a date for a new summit in Egypt, sponsored by the African Union, to try again to solve the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, the Egyptian president’s office said Monday.

African Union (AU) peace keeper shows injuries on a former detainee, allegedly inflicted by Sudanese forces, after a prisoners release at a AU compound in el-Fasher in the Darfur region.(AFP).

“The various parties involved are currently engaged in negotiations to set a new date for the Darfur summit initially slated for March 5 in Aswan” in southern Egypt, presidential spokesman Suleiman Awwad told the official MENA news agency.

The leaders of Sudan, neighbouring Egypt, Chad and Libya, as well as Nigeria — which chairs the African Union — are due to take part.

A similar meeting on the troubled west Sudan region of Darfur was held in Libya in October 2004, but yielded little result on the ground.

Another summit grouping several other African leaders was held in Chad earlier this month and outlined new steps to ensure that a moribund ceasefire was being respected in Darfur.

Violations of the April 2004 ceasefire by the Sudanese government, its militia allies, and the Darfur rebels had led to the collapse of the Abuja peace talks in December last year.

The Abuja talks — the only direct negotiations between warring parties — have yet to resume, despite an earlier announcement from Khartoum that the process could restart by the end of February.

The government crackdown on an uprising launched by rebel groups in Darfur two years ago has caused what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst continuing humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands dead and 1.6 million people displaced.