JEDDAH/ARUSHA, 6 August 2007 — A joint mission by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is heading to Darfur, Sudan, on Aug. 10 to provide emergency humanitarian relief at a cost of $1 million.
According to sources, the president of the IDB, Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, met with OIC Assistant Secretary-General for International and Humanitarian Affairs, Ambassador Atta El-Manan Bakhit, and the ambassador of Sudan in Saudi Arabia at the OIC General Secretariat headquarters in Jeddah to discuss the goals of the mission.
The ten-day mission will travel to Khartoum first and then to Darfur to provide needed medicine, food and other items for the refugees and people of Darfur. While in Khartoum, the mission will discuss with Sudanese authorities organizing an OIC international donors’ conference in aid of Darfur.
Following the outstanding success of the first international donors’ conference organized by the OIC that was held in Qatar on June 12-13, for Promoting Food Self-Sufficiency in Niger and which raised $370 million, Sudan approached the OIC to organize a similar conference for helping relief the refugee crisis in Darfur.
According to sources, the issue was brought up on July 17, during a visit by Meny Arku Menawy, senior aide of the president of Sudan and head of the Transitional Regional Authority in Darfur, to the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah.
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu stated afterward that he would dispatch shortly a technical mission composed of the General Secretariat and OIC specialized organs and affiliated institutions to Khartoum and Darfur to examine some development projects that can be implemented in the region.
Meanwhile, Darfur’s fractious rebel groups held a third day of reconciliation talks in Tanzania yesterday in a bid to present a united front at future peace talks with Khartoum. Launched on Friday, the talks bring together most of the political and military leaders of the many factions that have sprouted in Darfur over the past four and half years of conflict.
The EU— and UN-backed discussions — the first since the signing of a peace agreement last year — were due to wind up yesterday but are now expected to continue into today, sources said.
Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for UN envoy to Sudan Jan Eliasson, has said the participants are trying to “agree on confidence-building measures” to enhance security and stability in the conflict zone. Eliasson and African Union envoy Salim Ahmed Salim are mediating the talks.
A peace deal aimed at ending the bloodshed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur was signed with Khartoum in May last year in the Nigerian capital Abuja, but only one of the three negotiating rebel factions endorsed it. Since then, violence has flourished and splinter groups have formed, complicating the prospect of a new round of peace negotiations with the Sudanese government.
—With additional input from agencies
