Darfur peace talks to resume in May - AU spokesman

Peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels in the western region of Darfur are expected to resume in May, a spokesman for the African Union (AU) in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, told IRIN on Wednesday. An AU mediation team, he added, had been holding consultations with Sudanese government officials in a renewed effort to jumpstart the negotiations. "The team briefed the Sudanese officials on the preparations made by the AU to create an environment conducive to the resumption of the Darfur peace talks in Abuja [Nigeria]," the spokesman, Nourreddine Mezni, said. "The peace talks are expected to resume in May, although specific dates will only be finalised at the end of the current consultation," he added. The talks will be a follow-up to the first round of discussions held at the end of February, with all parties to the Darfur conflict. The AU team on Darfur, led by Sam Ibok and accompanied by the special representative of the AU chairperson for the Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, met the Sudanese Vice President, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, and the Minister of Agriculture and head of the government delegation to Abuja peace talks, Magzoub Al Khalifa. According to an AU statement released on Tuesday after the meeting, Taha reaffirmed the commitment of the Sudanese government to go back to Abuja in order to reach an agreement to end the conflict in Darfur. "The parties to the conflict are studying the protocol in order to reach agreement on the date, format and duration of the talks," Mezni said, referring to the framework protocol for the resolution of the conflict in Darfur that was submitted earlier by the mediation team to the Sudanese parties. The AU team was scheduled to leave Khartoum on Wednesday evening to continue its consultations with the main Darfur rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, the Justice and Equality Movement, and other interested parties. Meanwhile, the Sudanese minister of humanitarian affairs, Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid, said on Tuesday that his government had adopted new policies to facilitate the activities of humanitarian organisations in war-affected areas, the official Sudanese News Agency reported. Hamid said new mechanisms, including customs facilities and exemptions for aid organisations, would facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid to Darfur and other affected areas, while restrictive movement permits for aid workers would be cancelled, except for insecure areas. In a related development, The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that a planned cut in rations for close to two million people in Darfur would not happen because a donation of 14,000 mt of food had been received from USAID. "We intended to cut people’s food rations due to severe under-funding of non-cereal food-items," Peter Smerdon, senior WFP spokesperson, told IRIN on Wednesday. "We are extremely appreciative of the urgent efforts made by the United States to prevent ration cuts at such a critical period," Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP's representative and country director in Sudan, said in a statement released on Tuesday. WFP warned, however, that despite this stop-gap measure for the current non-cereals shortfall, the overall emergency operation in Darfur still remained severely under-funded. Of the US $467 million it needed for the Darfur operation, only $281 million had been received, leaving a 40-percent shortfall. Worse still, the estimated number of people in need of food aid during the hunger season of July and August was expected to go up from 2.8 million to 3.5 million people - more than half the population of Darfur - due to war, drought and a breakdown of local coping mechanisms. The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias - allegedly allied to the government - against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Over 2.4 million people continue to be affected by the conflict, 1.85 million of whom are internally displaced or have been forced to flee to neighbouring Chad.