Sudan Kordofan peace talks break

Peace talks between Sudan's government and rebels from South Kordofan and Blue Nile broke Thursday with little progress and amid fresh accusations of an renewed military offensive by Khartoum, rebels said. "Our areas have been bombarded for more than 16 hours by the Sudan government and there is a huge offensive," rebel delegation leader Yasir Arman told Agence France Presse. The latest round of slow moving stop-start talks resumed in the Ethiopian capital on April 22, but broke after reports of heavy fighting in South Kordofan's Nuba mountains. Talks are set to resume later this month, although no date has been set. Almost three years of fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile had already displaced or severely affected more than one million people. Fighting erupted shortly before South Sudan split from Sudan in 2011, as former rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) took up arms again. Like the 11-year-old insurgency in western Sudan's Darfur region, the Kordofan-Blue Nile war has been fueled by complaints among non-Arab groups of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated regime. Despite the accusations of a government-led offensive, Arman said some progress had been made in the African Union-mediated talks, though two key sticking points -- a ceasefire and humanitarian access -- remain unresolved. "What we did is limited, the major issues are still on the table," Arman said, who led talks with the government despite having been sentenced to death in absentia in March. The chief mediator, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, is set to travel to key battlegrounds before talks resume. The United Nations has called for an urgent ceasefire and has asked both sides to allow in aid. Source: AFP