Specter of war threatens human disaster in Sudan, aid groups warn

International diplomacy to support a fragile peace deal in Sudan must intensify or the south of the country will suffer a humanitarian disaster, aid groups have warned. The appeal from Oxfam and other NGOs for urgent preventive diplomacy comes as Africa's largest country marks the fifth anniversary of the January 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), signed by Sudan's central government and the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement. The deal, brokered by outside powers, ended one of Africa's longest conflicts: a civil war between north and south that began in 1983 and has claimed an estimated 2 million lives, driving 4 million people from their homes and destabilizing much of east Africa. Aid groups fear that tensions ahead of planned elections in April and a referendum in southern Sudan next year–tensions that will almost certainly result in secession–could kill off the CPA and unleash renewed strife.