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Leaders meet on regional conflicts

 

Thursday, January 25, 2007

 

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Sirte, Libya (AFP) - African leaders gathered in Libya on Thursday for a summit set to focus on the conflicts in Somalia and Sudan's Darfur region.

 

Libyan leader and summit host Moamer Kadhafi held talks on Wednesday with some of the leaders of the African states which make up the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), the official JANA news agency said.

 

"This summit is going to look at the issues of Darfur, Somalia, and the reactivation of the African Union in order to find a common position" ahead of the AU summit next week, CEN-SAD secretary-general Mohamed al-Madani al-Azhari said.

 

CEN-SAD, which is holding the summit in the town of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast east of Tripoli, was formed in 1998 to promote regional economic integration and has its headquarters in the Libyan capital.

 

The organisation groups states with a combined population of 350 million, about 43 percent of the total in the continent of Africa.

 

The summit comes as the United States revealed it had carried out a second air strike this week against suspected al-Qaeda militants in Somalia, where Ethiopian troops have been sent in to help the weak Somali government counter a rising Islamist movement.

 

A fresh batch of United Nations personnel is also expected in Darfur in the next few days as part of a plan to assist an embattled contingent of African peacekeepers.

 

According to UN figures, at least 200 000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced since the February 2003 rebel uprising that was fiercely repressed by government troops and allied militias.

 

Source: AFP, Jan 25, 2007

 

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