The Darfur factions of the Sudan Revolutionary Front are scheduled to convene a meeting with the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in Arusha resort in Tanzania next August, with the goal of discussing the security and humanitarian situation in the region.

Minni Arko Minawi, the commander of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, confirmed in an interview posted on the website Youtube that the UNAMID Joint Special Representative Mohamed Ibn Chambas called for a meeting with the armed factions of Darfur in mid-August.

He further explained that the meeting will include the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan Liberation Movement and SPLA-North. He said that representatives of international organizations and Canada, the United States and Britain would also attend.

In the same remarks Minawi also pointed to tensions with the National Consensus Forces, Sudan’s non-armed opposition forces. He disclosed that a committee of the Revolutionary Front convened a meeting to discuss observations made by the Khartoum-based opposition on the New Dawn Charter, a position paper inked by SRF leaders in Kampala in October last year.

The committee, headed by Al-Tom Haju, a dissident of the Democratic Unionist Party, found the observations of the National Consensus Forces on the charter to be essentially irrelevant, and forwarded their recommendations to the leadership of the Revolutionary Front for approval.   

File photo: Peacekeepers in Darfur after an ambush earlier this month (UNAMID/Albert González Farran)