Peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebel groups will resume next month, report Sudanese media outlets. The talks will be conducted in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, beginning mid-September.
Preliminary talks were conducted over the past few days in Tanzania. Head of the governmental negotiating team, Majzoub Al-Khalifa Ahmad, who returned on Wednesday from Tanzania, told reporters the talks had set the stage for successful meetings in Abuja. He added he hopes that a peace agreement will be signed very soon between the two parties.
On July 5, the rebels and the government signed a declaration of principles, with the intention of bringing the civil war to its end. An armed conflict erupted in February 2003 in the western region of Sudan, which brought about the killing of more than 70,000 people, while more than a million and a half became homeless. Some 200,000 Sudanese people had to flee the country and find refuge in the neighboring Chad.