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Museveni, Sudan’s Vice President discuss refugee crisis
President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has hailed President Yoweri Museveni’s peace efforts in Sudan following the safe release and handover of 125 Prisoners of war by SPLM-North to the Khatoum government.
In a special message delivered to Museveni by the Sudanese Vice President Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman, President Bashir said the gesture was a positive step towards achieving peace in the region.
The two leaders met at the Villa Rosa Kempisky Hotel in Nairobi ahead of today’s IGAD summit on refugees.
Heads of state under the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trade bloc that includes governments from the Horn, Nile Valley and the African Great Lakes are meeting to seek sustainable solutions to the Somali Refugee crisis.
Gen. Bashir urged Museveni to steer efforts towards handling the refugee crisis in the region saying Sudan alone has over two million refugees from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Central African republic among others including those seeking to cross borders to Europe and with little or no response from the international community.
In March this year, Museveni presided over the safe handover of 125 Sudanese prisoners of war, to the Khatoum Government, who had been previously captured by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel fighters.
He thanked both the Government of Sudan for accepting the prisoners of war and to the SPLM-North for exhibiting the peace gesture.
The British government has invited President Museveni to a Somali Conference in London where it is hoped that efforts to accelerate progress on the security sector reform and the new international partnership needed to keep Somalia on course for increased peace and prosperity by 2020 and the refugee issue will be heightened.
