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Sudan sets date for Darfur administrative status referendum

Published 2016-01-12, 11:50 a/m
© Reuters. Sudan sets date for Darfur administrative status referendum

KHARTOUM, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Sudan will hold a referendum in
Darfur on April 11-13 over whether or not the war-torn region
will stay divided into five states or reunite as one entity with
a degree of autonomy, a senior official said on Tuesday.
The splitting of Darfur into five states was one of the main
reasons the deadly conflict there arose in the first place. The
Darfur conflict began in 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took
up arms against the Arab-led government in Khartoum, accusing it
of discrimination.
"Voting over the administrative situation of Darfur will be
between 11 and 13 of next April," the Darfur referendum
commission head Omar Ali Gemaa said at a news conference.
The referendum was agreed upon in the 2001 Doha peace deal
that the government signed in Qatar with the Liberation and
Justice Movement, an umbrella organisation of small rebel
groups.
The two main rebel groups that started the conflict, the
Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army, did
not sign the deal.
Sudan has decided to go ahead with the referendum
unilaterally with several rebel and opposition groups boycotting
the process, raising fears that the region might follow in South
Sudan's footsteps and secede.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 under a 2005 peace
deal which ended one of Africa's longest civil wars but both
countries remain at loggerheads over ownership of disputed
territories and other issues.
According to the United Nations, as many as 300,000 people
have been killed in Darfur, some 4.4 million people need aid and
more than 2.5 million have been displaced. Although the killings
have eased, the insurgency continues and Khartoum has sharply
escalated attacks on rebel groups over the past year.

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