UN-AU MEDIATOR, QATARIS KICK OFF TALKS IN DARFUR ON PEACE PROCESS

28 November - Members of the Darfur mediation team, including the United Nations, the African Union and Qatar, have arrived in the strife-torn Sudanese region to begin several days of consultations aimed at advancing the ongoing peace process.

AU-UN Joint Chief Mediator Djibrill Bassolé and Qatari Foreign Minister Ahmed bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud kicked off the talks today in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and headquarters of the joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

Over the next several days, they will hold extensive consultations on the ongoing peace process with the local authorities and representatives of civil society, including internally displaced persons, nomadic communities and other stakeholders.

Today the mediation team met with UNAMID Joint Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari and representatives from the local community at the University of El Fasher.

“The mediation team delivered a briefing on progress made in the peace process and listened to participants in order to compile opinions on the way forward for the conflict in Darfur,” the mission said in a news release.

In September a committee involving members of the mediation team produced a preliminary draft peace document aimed at ending the bloody conflict in Darfur in which some 300,000 have been killed and 2.7 million other driven from their homes in the past seven years.

The team will hold consultations in Nyala, South Darfur, and in El Geneina and Zalingei, West Darfur, over the next three days.