Panafrican News Agency

Hundreds of IDPs consulted on peace process in Darfur

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The UN and the Sudanese parties to the peace talks in Juba, South Sudan, have brought together hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the five Darfur regions to discuss how peace could be achieved in the region.

According to the UN African Union peace keeping mission in Darfur, a meeting was organized on Thursday, 30 January, by the Joint Field Committee comprising the Transitional Government of Sudan (TGoS) and Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF)- Darfur Track in partnership with UNAMID,  for 200 representatives of Internally Displace Persons (IDPs) drawn from all Darfur States. 

The consultative conference comes in application of the UN Security Council Resolution 2495 (2019), which stipulated that the Mission provides logistical support to the Sudan Peace Commission, TGoS, and SRF -Darfur Track, to organize two major consultative conferences for IDPs, native administration and civil society organizations.

The aim is to facilitate the participation of these groups in peace talks currently underway in Juba, South Sudan. These groups are normally sidelined in the peace talks and the matter is left for politicians to decide.

This time both the transitional government, the UN and the partners who usually provide funding and logistics to the peace talks, the Troika group in particular, have decided that the ordinary people, women and the millions of the internally displaced persons should take part in any peace talks and their views be accommodated.

Thursday's meeting appears to be the first implementation of the resolution and the first time ever the IDPs, not the henpecked native administration leaders, are consulted in the peace process in Darfur, a region the size of France, with at least five million refugees and internally displaced persons, victims of a war that continued for over 17 years now.

-0- PANA MO/VAO 30Jan2020