UN role sought in Sudan talks
Sudanese exiles on Wednesday demonstrated in Nairobi demanding UN Security Council intervention to revive talks for ending the 20-year civil war back home.
Holding aloft banners calling for international intervention, about 100 protesters demonstrated outside the UN offices and the embassies of countries involved in the peace process for Sudan.
“We are tired of war. We are tired of being in exile. Sudan peace process should be embodied in the UN Security Council resolution,” read some of the banners.
The demonstrators accused Khartoum of delaying an agreement to exploit the oil resources in the country’s south. They alleged the south’s oil wealth is at the heart of the conflict that has killed up to two million people and displaced another four million.
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“We are tired of war. We are tired of being in exile. Sudan peace process should be embodied in the UN Security Council resolution” Banner at the demonstration |
Talks between government officials and southern Sudanese rebels collapsed last Monday after the two sides failed to agree on an agenda for negotiations.
Delivering petitions to the British, Italian, Norweigian and US embassies in Nairobi, the protesters demanded the UN Security Council should step in to end Sudan’s civil war.
“If the current peace talks collapse, we appeal to the Council to embody and pass a resolution to solve the Sudan problem,” they said.
Meanwhile, east African mediators worked round the clock to bring Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels back to the negotiating table, after talks in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki collapsed.
The IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) secretariat is still exerting strenuous efforts to bring the viewpoints of the government and rebel movement closer,” presidential peace advisor Ghazi Eddin Atabani said.