Summit on Sudan, Somalia opens in Kenya

Leaders of five African States opened a summit in Nairobi on civil war in Sudan and Somalia yesterday, but Ugandan President Yoweri Moseveni's absence put real progress in doubt.

Kenyan officials said they had no idea why Moseveni, who had pressed for the summit under the auspices of the Intergovernment Authority on Development (IGAD), failed to arrive in Nairobi. But a diplomat, who declined to be identified, said Moseveni held that he would only attend if he could secure an agreement for the release of 21 schoolgirls in abducted in October in northern Uganda, by Ugandan rebels with bases in south Sudan.

The school girls were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army, which Uganda says is backed the government of Sudanese President Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who attended the talks.