U.N. wants immediate Darfur ceasefire after attack

By Peter Apps

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Groups in Sudan's Darfur should cease hostilities now and not wait for peace talks at the end of the month after a weekend attack killed 10 peacekeepers, a United Nations negotiator said on Wednesday.

UN Sudan envoy Jan Eliasson said the attack, blamed on splinter groups from Darfur's already divided rebel factions, should not be allowed to disrupt talks scheduled to begin in Libya on October 27. Most parties have agreed to cease hostilities at the same time, but fighting continues.

"We cannot say it was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the talks but it was certainly a deliberate step to provoke negative developments," the former Swedish foreign minister told Reuters in a telephone interview hours before flying to Sudan.

"But we have to move forward with the talks and we will move forward with the talks. The world expects the parties to cease hostilities on October 27 and in fact after this terrible attack they should cease hostilities now."

Eliasson said it was still not entirely clear who was behind the assault on the African Union peacekeepers, who are due to be reinforced when their mission is absorbed into a much larger 26,000 member hybrid AU-UN force.

"There are some sources claiming this is renegade or small factions of a group not acting in the spirit of the leadership," he said. "We have noted that important leaders of the different rebel movements have condemned this terrible act and by that committed themselves to the talks and the process of finding a political solution."

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International experts say some 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million fled their homes in Darfur since local rebels took up arms in 2003. Washington has accused Sudan of using Arab militia known as Janjaweed to conduct genocide, a term European and African governments avoid.