Khartoum, May 20: The head of Darfur’s most heavily armed rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, has left Ndjamena for Tripoli after being denied entry into Chad and being held at the airport overnight, his spokesman said.
“A plane carrying Khalil Ibrahim and his delegation left Ndjamena at 9:15 pm (2015 GMT) and is on its way to the Libyan capital Tripoli, after mediation by Libya,” JEM spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam said by phone from London.
Chadian airport authorities had been holding Ibrahim and a number of other JEM members since they arrived from Tripoli at 1:00 am, denying them access to the Sudanese region of Darfur through neighbouring Chad.
The official SUNA news agency reported that Chadian President Idriss Deby had telephoned his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir to “assure him he would not host Ibrahim and his delegation,” following a deal signed by Ndjamena and Khartoum in January to normalise ties.
Chadian authorities had confiscated the passports of the JEM delegation members and told them to go back to Libya, Adam said earlier.
“The pilot refused to let them on board the plane because they did not have the necessary documents,” Adam said.
There was no immediate comment from Chadian authorities.
Khalil and his delegation had planned to head to Darfur through Chad, the only passage for them into the war-torn region of western Sudan.
Sudan said Chad’s action reflected the rapprochement between Khartoum and Ndjamena, who agreed in January to normalise ties after years of tense relations.
“This step reflects the friendly relations between both countries and the commitment of both countries to the agreement they signed to normalise ties and achieve peace in the region,” government spokesman Kamal Ebeid told reporters in Khartoum.
Authorities in Chad had been trying to get Ibrahim and the JEM delegation — most of whom are travelling on Chadian passports — to the Qatari capital Doha, the venue of recent peace feelers between the JEM and Khartoum, Adam said.
Those talks were suspended after the JEM accused the army of attacking its positions last month. The government then issued a warrant for Ibrahim’s arrest.
Adam said that by moving the JEM delegation to Qatar, Chad was “pushing the group to sign an agreement which is against the interests of the people of Darfur.”
He called on the Chadian government and Deby to “immediately release Khalil and to let him into Darfur … and not to contribute to this conspiracy against the movement.”
But Ebeid said the move by Chad sent a clear message to Ibrahim that “the only way is negotiation.”
Chad had long accused Sudan of supporting rebels seeking to oust the government, while Khartoum has charged Ndjamena with backing and arming rebels in Darfur.
The two agreed to deploy a joint force on their border, in a move aimed at ending the presence of rebels on each other’s territory and stemming their activity.
Chad and Sudan in the past signed similar agreements but those accords were never implemented.
Improved ties between the two countries are seen as a major step towards peace in Darfur, where the United Nations says about 300,000 people have died since rebels revolted in 2003. Khartoum says 10,000 were killed.
The two countries broke off diplomatic relations for several months in 2008 after a surprise rebel attack on Ndjamena which came close to overthrowing Deby before government forces rallied to rout the insurgents.
In 2008, more than 200 people were killed and hundreds wounded when the JEM launched a shock attack on Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman.
–Agencies