The heads of Sudan and Chad on Thursday signed a non-aggression pact -- the sixth deal in five years aiming to halt hostilities between the African rivals.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and Chadian President Idriss Deby signed the accord and shook hands at the Senegalese presidential palace in the presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.
It came after more than 24 dramatic hours of attempts by Wade to bring the two arch-rivals together in Dakar.
PHOTO: AP
Beshir and Deby accuse each other of backing rebels seeking to overthrow their governments and there have been several clashes between their armies.
The text of the deal, released by Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane, said "we solemnly engage to prohibit all activity by armed groups and to stop the use of our respective territories for the destabilization of one or other of our states."
The two presidents also committed to a personal reconciliation and to normalize relations between their countries.
They promised to help establish peace and stability in the troubled region already stricken by the Darfur conflict in western Sudan, on Chad's border. They also vowed to implement their past accords -- though widespread doubts have been expressed about the viability of any of the deals.
Beshir failed to turn up for one mini-summit after his arrival in Dakar on Wednesday night. Wade said Beshir blamed his absence on a headache.
On Thursday, Deby's government said Chadian rebels based in Sudan had crossed the border to launch an offensive.
Chadian rebels and Sudan denied the claim which highlighted the rivalry between the pair.
General Mahamat Nouri, who now heads Chad's main rebel force, said "nothing is going on" and in Dakar, Sudanese Deputy Foreign Minister al-Sammani al-Sheikh al-Wassila told reporters: "I can assure you this is complete nonsense."
Chad appeared to be calm, said a spokesman for EUFOR Chad-CAR, the force of 3,700 French-led soldiers starting to deploy in Chad and the neighboring Central African Republic with a mandate to protect Darfur refugees.
The UN said on Wednesday that there are now about 470,000 refugees in eastern Chad -- 250,000 from Darfur, 57,000 from the Central African Republic and 180,000 internally displaced Chadians.
Three rebel factions drove across southern Chad in late January to launch a bloody assault on Ndjamena on Feb. 2 to Feb. 3, which left scores dead. It was pushed back by Deby's forces with French logistical help.
Deby accused Sudan of arming the rebels and letting them use bases in Sudan. The Khartoum government denied the claims.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi brokered one peace deal in February 2006 and another was sealed in the Sudanese capital in August the same year.
Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic made another agreement last year not to let rebels from other countries use their territory.
In May last year Deby and Beshir made another pact after praying together at the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine at Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Beshir made a new swipe at his rival on Tuesday.
"After the prayers inside the Kaaba, hand in hand, we said: `We have a deal and may Allah punish he who breaks it,'" Beshir said in Dubai. "If the Chadian president failed to honor an agreement made inside the Kaaba, how can you expect him to adhere to an agreement he [might] sign in Dakar?"
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
RSS