Darfur rebels meet in Tanzania and other stories from Sudan, Chad, and the CAR
Darfur rebels meeting in Tanzania have agreed on a negotiating position for talks with the Sudanese government. Khartoum criticized France for failing to encourage rebel leader Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, founder and chairman of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), to attend the talks; he refused to attend until an oil-for-food program and a no-fly zone are implemented in Darfur.
The rebel factions had been meeting at a luxury resort in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha to try and bury past differences over the leadership and direction of the vast western region of Sudan.
“They … recommended that final talks should be held between two to three months from now,” U.N. envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson told the closing session of the four-day meeting.
Eliasson said the groups had reached “a common platform” for negotiations, encompassing power and wealth sharing, security, land and humanitarian issues.
The US is coordinating an airlift of emergency supplies to the Central African Republic, while UNICEF aids in releasing children from rebel forces.
Chad’s rainy season, with ongoing violence and displacement, brings the health situation closer to emergency levels: an interview with Dr. Ingo Hartlapp from Medecins Sans Frontiers.
We Blog for Darfur praises the film Jihad on Horseback.