Sudanese Rebel Movement Says Peace Talks Have Collapsed

ABUJA (AFP) - One of two rebel movements engaged in peace talks with Sudan's government mediated by the African Union (AU) said the negotiations had collapsed and could be suspended for weeks.

Mohammed Ahmed Tugod, the chief negotiator for the Justice and Equality Movement, told AFP on Wednesday that "the negociations have collapsed already because there are differences, strong differences between us and the Sudanese government."

The AU-mediated talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja are a bid to end a conflict which erupted in February 2003 and has become what the United States last week called a "genocide", claiming up to 50,000 lives and displacing almost a million and a half people.

"The AU is now suggesting to suspend the talks for four weeks, and for us it as if the talks have collapsed," Tugod said.

The United Nations, which has put the death toll between 30,000 and 50,000, has described the food and refugee problem created by the conflict the world's worst current humanitarian crisis.