KHARTOUM, January 29 (RIA Novosti) - Sudan's
parliament speaker, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taher, and Russian
presidential envoy for Sudan Mikhail Margelov proposed on
Thursday holding an international conference on Darfur in
Moscow in September.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir backed the initiative,
saying that resolving the conflict in western Sudan would
require the efforts of the entire international community.
According to the UN, more than 300,000 people have been
killed and around 2.7 million displaced in the ongoing conflict
in Darfur.
The UN Mission in Sudan was established in 2005 to monitor
the peace agreement between the government in Khartoum and the
Sudan People's Liberation Movement in southern Sudan, which
ended the longest-running civil war in Africa.
The UN presence in Sudan has since been expanded through
the United Nations and African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID)
to include peacekeeping operations in Darfur. Since 2003, Chad
and Sudan have accused each other of inciting conflict on their
common border, which is along the west Sudanese region of
Darfur.
Russia has had a contingent of four Mi-8 helicopters and
120 personnel assisting UN operations in Sudan since April
2006. They are expected to stay - with regular rotations - for
five or six years.
News
