Sudan's government and southern rebels signed a comprehensive peace deal today ending Africa's longest-running civil war.
Sudan's First Vice President Mr Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and Mr John Garang, chairman of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), signed the accord at a ceremony in Kenya's capital Nairobi, ending a 21-year-old old conflict in the south that has killed an estimated two million people mainly through famine and disease.
The accord does not cover a separate conflict in the western Darfur area, where almost two years of fighting has created what the United Nations says is one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
In front of 12 African heads of state or government and US Secretary of StateMr Colin Powell, Mr Garang and Mr Taha put their names to a series of protocols signed by junior colleagues in two years of talks that together constitute an overall accord including a permanent ceasefire.
Under the agreement the ruling National Congress party and the SPLM will form a coalition government, decentralise power, share oil revenues and integrate the military.
At the end of a six-year interim period, the south can vote for secession. Sudan faces conflict on many fronts, mainly in the south where rebels have been fighting the government since 1983, when Khartoum tried to impose Islamic law on the entire country.
But violence is also ravaging Darfur, where a rebellion began in February 2003 after years of tribal conflict over scarce resources. The rebels accused the government of neglect and of using Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum acknowledges arming some militias to fight rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws. Tens of thousands have already been killed in the Darfur war and nearly two million forced to flee their homes.