Khartoum seeks OIC help in enforcing truce in Sudan's Darfur region

Monday June 14th, 2004.

ISTANBUL, June 14 (AFP) -- Sudan on Monday urged Islamic nations to help it enforce a two-month-old ceasefire in the western Darfur region, where Khartoum and an allied militia have been fighting rebels since last year.

"We have asked the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) for help in enforcing the ceasefire, especially in light of the fact that the OIC sent a delegation when the truce was signed in April," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustapha Osman Ismail told AFP at the 31st OIC conference here.

"We want a greater commitment from the OIC," he said.

"The interest shown by the international community in this issue and the presence of African Union observers makes it more difficult for rebels to violate the ceasefire," he added.

At least 10,000 people have died, by UN estimates, since rebels in Darfur rose up against the government in Khartoum in February last year, complaining that the mainly black African people in their region were being neglected by the predominantly Islamic, Arab government.

The uprising met with fierce retaliation by government forces and an allied Arab militia called the Janjawid.

An estimated one million people have been displaced in Darfur since the start of the conflict and 130,000 others have fled across the border into Chad. UN agencies have described the Darfur crisis as the world's biggest current humanitarian problem.

Each side has accused the other of numerous violations of the truce signed for Darfur on April 8, under which African Union observers have been deployed in the region.