Military

16 September 2004 – Senior United Nations and African Union (AU) officials have held discussions on the humanitarian and security crises engulfing the Darfur region of Sudan as peace talks to try to end the conflict appear set to be adjourned.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan, yesterday visited the AU Ceasefire Commission headquarters in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, where he spoke with Commission chairman Gen. Festus Okonkwo.

Mr. Pronk and Gen. Okonkwo discussed the latest situation on the ground as well how the UN and the AU can better communicate and exchange information with each other as they try to ameliorate the suffering in Darfur.

Also in El Fasher, Mr. Pronk's Deputy for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Manuel Aranda da Silva, is today scheduled to meet leaders of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of two rebel groups in Darfur fighting against Khartoum.

Mr. Eckhard said those talks were likely to focus on establishing security arrangements for humanitarian workers to operate in the areas of Darfur under the control of the SLA - similar to the arrangements already set up with Khartoum in areas the Government controls.

In Abuja, Nigeria, talks between Khartoum and the two rebel groups could be adjourned, prompting Mr. Pronk to indicate concern there will be no venue to discuss security problems.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the other rebel group, has told the AU mediators of the Abuja talks that they need time to consider the request of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo (who is also the AU's current chairman) to sign the humanitarian protocol to which all parties have agreed.

More than 1.2 million people are internally displaced in Darfur because of the conflict between the Sudanese Government on one side and JEM and the SLA on the other, as well as brutal and often deadly attacks against civilians by militias allied to Khartoum. Another 200,000 refugees have fled to Chad.

Earlier this week, a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that hundreds of displaced people are dying every day across Darfur because of disease in crowded and unhygienic camps or from attacks by the militias, known as the Janjaweed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Eckhard said the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - which are fighting a separate civil war in Sudan's south - say they expect to resume their peace talks in Kenya next month.