Nivasha negotiations were resumed, Europe calls for relieving Darfour
Sudan-European Union, Politics, 4/30/2004

The European commissioner for humanitarian aid, Paul Nelson, urged the conflicting sides in West Darfour provinces in Sudan to permit the access of humanitarian aid to effected people.

Nelson said that European aid worth 10 million EUROS will be added to the previous European aid to withstand the catastrophic situation there, noting that the conflict in Darfour resulted in one year in thousands of killed persons and the dislocation of 750,000 persons and one million person inside Sudan, as well as other 110,000 who evacuated to neighboring Chad.

For its part, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that the situation in Darfour is dangerous and there are tremendous food needs that were not met.

While the secretary general of the UN Kofi Annan stressed the arrival of two delegations from the organization to Sudan to investigate allegations over human rights violations and assessment of humanitarian conditions in Darfour, the US deplored Khartoum's rejection to permit the entry of an American team to evaluate the situation there describing that as an unacceptable matter.

Commenting on that, the Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs, Najib al-Kheir Abdul Wahid, said that Sudan will not oppose the entry of American relief employees as soon as the mission of the UN delegation ends after it evaluate the humanitarian needs of Darfour.

The Sudanese government and the rebels signed in Chad an agreement for cease fire on April 8th in order to facilitate the flow of relief items. However, the two sides continued to accuse each other since then of violating the agreement and obstructing the arrival of humanitarian aids to Darfour.

On the other hand, the Sudanese vice president Muhammad Othman Taha and the leader of the southern rebels John Garang resumed talks at Nivasha's resort in Kenya.

The Kenyan mediator in the negotiations Lazaraos Simbayo said that he had met with Taha and Garang, separately on Wednesday in order to discuss all pending issues between the two sides.

The last round of talks was stumbled over the implementation of the Islamic Sharia in al-Khartoum during a 6 year of provisional period in which the city will be a joint capital for a provisional administration before making a referendum over self determination in the south of Sudan.

Previous Stories:
  Garang proposes to help in settling the conflict in Darfour   (4/28/2004)
  Darfour rebels call for transferring talks from Chad   (4/27/2004)
  Sudanese peace agreement is expected within days   (4/26/2004)
  European parliament stresses continued fighting in western Sudan   (2/24/2004)
  Europe to join peace plan in Sudan   (8/9/2003)
  EU concern over UN bombing in Sudan   (3/2/2002)

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