Second extension granted to warring Darfur factions

African Union mediators granted a second 48-hour extension on Tuesday night to Darfur warring factions meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja on how to bring peace to Sudan’s troubled western region. US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Britain’s Development Secretary Hilary Benn failed to hold Darfur rebel groups to a midnight (2300 GMT) deadline on the signing of an 85-page draft peace agreement. While Khartoum said it was ready to sign off on the compromise accord, rebels from the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) held fast on security concessions and power-sharing demands. For the first time on Tuesday, SLA delegates arrived at the Abuja talks in military fatigues, to send a message they said, that the talks were failing and it was time to pick up their guns. “As far as we are concerned, these peace talks have failed. We are only remaining here today because our political leadership opted to continue talking. I am ready to go home,” the delegate who asked not to be named said. “And if we don’t get a good compromise from the talks, it means we are going back to fight for it on the ground. That’s the least you can expect,” he added. Some 200,000 Sudanese have fled the fighting in Darfur and sought shelter in isolated desert refugee camps in eastern Chad. The crisis has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The UN estimates more than 200,000 people have been killed as a result of worsening violence between the Sudanese government and rebels. The rebels accuse Khartoum of neglect and oppression of the people of Darfur in southwest Sudan and of sponsoring violent attacks by militia group the Janjawid on civilians, including women and children. Khartoum denies the allegations.