Darfur peace talks to end, aid agency pulls out

ABUJA - Sudan's government and Darfur rebels agreed to formally end faltering talks on Tuesday and the African Union urged both sides to stop fighting so peace efforts could resume in January, mediators and delegates said.

The break up of peace talks in the Nigerian capital came as British aid agency Save the Children announced it was pulling all 350 of its staff out of Darfur after the killing of four of its staff and renewed clashes in the western Sudanese region.

Nigerian President and AU chairman Olusegun Obasanjo met rebels and government delegates to determine the future of the negotiations and to persuade both sides to halt their military offensives.

"The talks will be formally closed today at 4pm, to resume sometime in January if the Sudan government complies with the AU chairman's request for them to stop the offensive and withdraw their troops to their former positions," said Tajeddin Bashir Niam of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The head of the Sudan government delegation Majzoub al-Khalifa said talks had reached a "successful end and we are all committed to the talks again."

He added that Sudan had accepted in principle Obasanjo's proposals to observe an April ceasefire and move back to positions held at the time at the truce was signed.

Rebels had already agreed to observe the much-violated ceasefire.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some 1.6 million forced to flee in nearly two years of fighting between rebels, government forces and Arab militias called Janjaweed.

The Khartoum government has rejected charges that it is backing the Janjaweed.

The chaotic security situation in Darfur has hampered the ability of aid agencies trying to reach the estimated 2.3 million people reliant on aid to survive.

Aid community sources in the region say rebels have been attacking aid and goods convoys along the Nyala to El-Fasher road, where two Save the Children workers were killed recently.

"We are devastated that we are unable to continue to offer health care, nutritional support, child protection and education to the approximately 250,000 children and family members served by our current programmes," said Save the Children chief Mike Aaronson.

"However, we just cannot continue to expose our staff to the unacceptable risks they face as they go about their humanitarian duties in Darfur."

The Darfur rebellion began in February 2003, when rebels accused Khartoum of neglecting the arid region where tribal tensions have long simmered over scarce resources.

The African Union is sponsoring peace talks in Abuja, but the main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), walked out last week, accusing the government of launching fresh assaults.

The African Union is gradually increasing the size of its multinational monitoring force in Darfur to more than 3000. The latest additions were 196 Gambian troops who left Banjul on Monday.

But the peace process suffered a further setback on Monday when a previously unknown rebel group, the Sudanese National Movement for the Eradication of Marginalisation, said it had attacked a South Darfur oil pumping station -- underlining the fragmented state of Africa's largest nation.

Sudan produces 320,000 barrels a day of crude oil and hopes to raise that to more than half a million next year.

The UN Security Council has decried the situation in Darfur but so far held back from threatening retributive sanctions.

- REUTERS