Sudan parliament rejects talks with rebels of SPLM-N
AFP –
Sudan’s parliament rejected on Monday a United Nations call for talks with rebels who have been fighting government troops for almost a year.
It also said it would not allow foreign aid agencies into rebel-held areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as proposed jointly by the United Nations, African Union and Arab League.
Rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) have been fighting in South Kordofan since last June, and in Blue Nile since September.
They were allies of southern rebels who now rule in South Sudan, which became independent last July under a peace deal which ended Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war.
“We reject negotiations with SPLM-North,” Mohammed Al-Hassan Al-Amin, head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the chamber.
In a UN Security Council resolution passed on May 2, the United Nations said the Khartoum government and SPLM-N “shall extend full cooperation” to the African Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), East Africa’s main diplomatic body, to reach a negotiated settlement.
There can be no military solution, the United Nations said, stressing the need for a political settlement “based on respect for diversity in unity.”
The UN resolution seeks to end weeks of border fighting between Sudan and South Sudan, and resolve protracted disputes between the two nations.
Khartoum accuses the South of supporting SPLM-N and other insurgents, a charge denied by Juba which alleges Sudan backs rebels on its territory. Both sides must end the practice, the UN resolution says.
It also strongly urges SPLM-N and the Sudanese government to accept the UN-AU-Arab League plan for aid to South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
But Sudan’s parliament said no. “We reject allowing international aid groups to assist in rebel areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan,” Al-Amin said.
Sudan has cited security concerns in severely controlling access for foreign relief agencies to both states.
Journalists are also not permitted to report freely in the area.
The UN and others have warned for months that aid agencies need access throughout the warzone — including to rebel-held regions — to properly assess people’s needs and distribute assistance to prevent a worse humanitarian situation.
In late April, the United Nations said a surging number of hungry refugees were fleeing fighting between SPLM-N and Sudanese troops. Some people were reduced to foraging in the wild, it said.
Sources in late March said negotiators were finalising the tripartite aid plan. But it has still not been implemented.
http://news.yahoo.com/sudan-parliament-rejects-talks-rebels-155914468.html
Airlift of South Sudanese under way in Khartoum
By Ian Timberlake | AFP –
The first batch of up to 15,000 South Sudanese to be airlifted from Khartoum were welcomed in their homeland Monday, after they were ordered to leave Sudan for the newly independent South.
The first of dozens of planes chartered by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) took off in the morning with around 160 South Sudanese, followed by a second flight late in the afternoon.
Despite coming from Southern ethnic groups, many have spent their entire lives in the north.
The passengers are among 12,000 to 15,000 Southerners who have been waiting to travel home from the Kosti camp 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Khartoum.
Kosti became home to the biggest single concentration of South Sudanese needing transport to the South, with many living in makeshift shelters or barn-like buildings for up to a year, and dependent on foreign aid.
Khartoum authorities hung a banner at the airport wishing the Southerners a safe journey.
“It is my first time to the South. I was born here,” Cecilia Peter, 27, said through a translator as she lined up for a boarding pass with her five children.
Peter said the family had spent 13 months in Kosti, after she lost her job as a teacher.
All ethnic Southerners were dismissed from Sudan’s civil service ahead of South Sudan’s independence last July under a peace deal that ended the 1983-2005 civil war which killed two million people and drove many more to the north.
Sudan’s authorities declared the migrants at Kosti a security threat and initially gave them a May 5 deadline to leave, sparking concern from the United Nations and the IOM, which has already helped over 376,000 Southerners to head home.
Officials extended the deadline to May 20 but then told the IOM to disregard the time limit after plans for the airlift were devised.
“We are very happy… the citizens have arrived safely,” said Joseph Lual Acuil, the South’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, who was among officials waiting at Juba airport as the returnees arrived.
Sisto Caesar, from the South’s Eastern Equatoria state, arrived in Juba with his five children, some of whom were born during the 14 years he spent in Khartoum, where he fled to escape the brutal two-decade long civil war.
“Life was not bad, but recently things started becoming hard,” Caesar said on arrival in Juba. “I have arrived home, and I am very happy.”
The returnees will stay initially in a camp in Juba before travelling on to the villages they came from originally.
Officials estimate some 350,000 Southerners remain in the north, despite the passing of a six month grace period for them to either formalise their status or leave.
The airlift will “help those people to end their suffering and difficulties they face,” said a Sudanese government official who saw off the first flight.
Recent border clashes between the armies — the most serious violence since Juba’s independence — prompted international fears of a return to full-blown conflict.
However, fighting has since calmed on the disputed frontier, and Khartoum and Juba are due to restart stalled talks this week to comply with a United Nations Security Council resolution.
The IOM had plans for transporting thousands of people from Kosti by barge but Sudan’s military expressed security concerns.
Initial plans had called for six flights a day, but the aircraft and crews have been delayed in arriving, said Jill Helke, who heads the IOM in Sudan.
Even with six daily flights the airlift would require about two weeks to move all the Kosti Southerners, who are first bussed to Khartoum.
South Sudan’s ambassador in Khartoum, Kau Nak, climbed the stairs of the airplane to leave his citizens with some parting words. Although they may have had “some bad experiences”, he urged them not to direct anger towards innocent Sudanese.
“The separation that took place is a political separation,” which should not overshadow cultural and other factors that bring Sudan and South Sudan together.
“We shall remain as permanent neighbours,” Nak said.
http://news.yahoo.com/airlift-south-sudanese-begins-khartoum-113629323.html
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