“I do not know if we can call this agreement comprehensive because some other armed forces in Sudan are still out and I hear they haven’t accepted to sign. A peace agreement becomes comprehensive when all those who are armed join the agreement with no one left out”, said His Exc. Mgr. Michael Didi Adgum Mangoria, Archbishop of Khartoum, commenting on the agreement reached on August 31 between the Sudanese government and a number of rebel groups. Fides News Agency reported on his remarks.
After months of negotiations, the agreement was signed in two phases during a ceremony in Juba, South Sudan: the first by the rebel movements in Darfur, where the war started in 2003, which caused at least 300,000 deaths and 2.5 million displaced. In a second phase by the rebel movement of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, where the war affected one million people.
The South Sudanese mediation team and representatives from Chad, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt attended the signing as observers.