400 JEM faction combatants to merge with Sudan army

A breakaway faction of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) that signed a peace accord with the government of West Darfur state in El Geneina in 2011 has announced that 400 of its combatants will join the integration process into the Sudan Armed Forces next week.

The spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement for Peace and Development (JEMPD), Bashir Mohamed Zein Idris, told Dabanga that “all the technical arrangements were completed with the Ministry of Defence to integrate the ex-rebels as officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers in the regular military forces”.

He called on the JEMPD veterans to report to the two military training camps in Central Darfur early next week.

According to the security arrangements stipulated in the peace accord, locally known as the Jebel Moon Agreement, the ex-rebels are entitled to join the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme.

In August last year, the first batches of the Liberation and Justice Movement, that signed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) with the Sudanese government in the Qatari capital in 2011, and of JEM-Sudan, that joined the DDPD in 2013, began with the DDR programme in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. Thousands of other LJM ex-rebels completed their integration training in West Darfur in December.