Sudan

The governments of Sudan and South Sudan on Thursday signed a joint military co-operation agreement aimed at providing armed training, peace and development between the two countries.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is in Khartoum, trying to persuade the transitional government to hand over former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and other former top officials wanted for war crimes and genocide in Darfur.

Leaders of Sudan's transitional government and a number of rebel groups signed a peace agreement Saturday in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, which observers hope will end nearly two decades of conflict in war-torn regions of the country, including Darfur. … The Sudanese peace accord includes eight protocols and will restructure the country into eight regions, replacing the country's current 18 provinces.

A start-up team of the United Nations political mission in Sudan known as UNITMAS will launch its activities in Khartoum next month to support the Sudanese government to achieve the tasks of transitions and peace implementation.

Political developments in Sudan continue to move along a positive trajectory, while planning for a UN mission to assist the transitional government is progressing, the UN Security Council heard on Friday. 

[…] One of the crucial issues for the foreseeable future and part of both, peace agreement and Constitutional Charter, will be the question of how to bring justice for large scale crimes and human rights violations of the past whilst at the same establishing and maintaining peace.

Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Sudan and the activities of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan.

[…] If properly implemented, the Juba peace agreement is a major first step towards creating a ‘New Sudan’ based on peace, equal citizenship and social justice.

The South Sudanese mediation announced that the final peace agreement between the Sudanese transitional government and the armed groups will be signed on 2 October in Juba.

Can this week’s peace deal between Khartoum and Sudan’s armed rebel groups stick? Logic suggests not, as two previous agreements signed among essentially the same players – also with some important holdouts – failed to stop the killing. Yet there is a critical difference between Monday’s agreement and the failed ones of 2006 and 2011 – which is promising.