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KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese government and a rebel group from the country's troubled Darfur region have signed a peace deal.
Thursday's signing in the Qatari capital of Doha was attended by Sudanese Presidentt Omar al-Bashir and representatives from Darfur's Justice and Liberation Movement. U.N. officials and African Union representatives were also present.
The deal ostensibly provides a basis for a cease-fire, power sharing, equal distribution of wealth and compensation for displaced people. In practice, however, the deal didn't include Darfur's key factions, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement.
Darfur has been in turmoil since fighting broke out in 2003 between ethnic African rebels and the government, aided by Arab militias.
Atrocities committed in June in Sudan's Southern Kordofan state by armies of the north and south "could amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes," according to a report by the UN human rights agency. The 12-page report, released on Monday in Geneva, covers the period from June 5 to June 30 and describes a wide range of alleged violations of international law in the town of Kadugli. The violations are also said to have occurred in the surrounding Nuba mountains, after fighting broke out in Kadugli on 5 June between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army North (SPLA-N).
Reported violations included "extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, enforced disappearances, attacks against civilians, looting of civilian homes and destruction of property," as well as massive displacement. The report describes a number of specific individual detentions and disappearances, including those of women and children. It says "a series of extrajudicial killings targeted people who were affiliated with the SPLA-N and SPLM, most of whom allegedly were from the Nuba communities".
Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said despite limited access by investagators to areas affected, what happened in Southern Kordofan was "serious". "This is a preliminary report produced under very challenging circumstances and with very limited access to affected areas," she said. "However, what it suggests has been happening in Southern Kordofan is so serious that it is essential there is an independent, thorough and objective inquiry with the aim of holding perpetrators to account." Pillay expressed concern about continuing violence in the six weeks since the end of the period covered by the report, and noted some of its key recommendations concerning access.
'Shot in public view'
