The government of Sudan and the main Darfur rebel faction have signed a peace agreement to end three years of fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced two million to flee their homes.
Majzoub al-Khalifa, head of the government's negotiating team, and rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction leader Minni Arcua Minnawi signed the deal in the Nigerian capital Abuja after days and nights of intense talks under global pressure.
"We are reaffirming that the fighting ends now in Darfur ... We shall go ahead with peace and we shall be serious," Minnawi said at a signing ceremony at the Nigerian presidential complex.
Rebels took up arms in early 2003 in ethnically mixed Darfur, a region the size of France, over what they saw as neglect by the Arab-dominated central government. Khartoum used Janjaweed militias drawn from Arab tribes to crush the rebellion.
A campaign of arson, looting and rape has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and the United States labels the violence there "genocide". The peace agreement, which covers security, wealth-sharing and power-sharing, is the result of two years of painstaking negotiations mediated by the African Union (AU). Two other rebel factions refused to sign, complaining that the document fell short of their basic expectations. Diplomats said this could pose problems in the implementation phase.
The rebels who refused to sign also risk UN sanctions such as travel bans or a freeze on assets. Three deadlines had passed without an agreement since Sunday because all the rebels had rejected the original AU draft.
To break the deadlock, an international team of diplomats flew in over the last few days to extract a few extra concessions to the rebels from the government. They obtained specific commitments to ensure the disarmament of the Janjaweed and stronger provisions for the integration of rebel fighters into Sudanese security forces.
These breakthroughs helped persuade Minnawi to sign the deal at the end of a nerve-wracking week, but they were not enough to convince Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, leader of a rival SLA faction, or the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).