New negotiations to end the ethnic conflict in Sudan's Darfur region were to get underway in Sirte, Libya, on Saturday, with Sudan sending a large delegation and about 15 countries and organizations attending, DPA reported. But the list of rebel representatives fighting the Sudanese government who planned to attend was short and the number of attendees low. Idriss Ibrahim Azraq and Ibrahim Yousif Mohammed Abdulla will lead the delegation from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the main rebel group in the fighting in Darfur, according to the DPA. Mohammed Ali Abdel Rahman of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), the second major rebel group, was said to be on his way to Libya, DPA reported. The UN also provided names of smaller fighting groups who had been invited to attend the talks, but there was no confirmation they would come. The talks will be opened by UN Special Envoy Jan Eliasson on behalf of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who heralded the diplomatic endeavour almost as a last-ditch effort to end the conflict that since 2003 has killed hundreds of thousands of people and made more than 2 million refugees, according to DPA.
