Secretary of State will attend Sudan peace signing

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Secretary of State Colin Powell will represent the United States at a signing ceremony for Sudan, the State Department said Thursday. The accord ends Africa's longest-running civil war.

Powell will attend the peace signing Sunday in Nairobi, Kenya, after completing a five-day tour of tsunami damage in Asia, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Powell will also meet with Kenyan and Sudanese government officials, Boucher said.

The Sudan peace accords resolve the two decades of conflict in southern Sudan that killed an estimated 2 million people, mostly from war-induced famine and disease. The war pitted the Arab-dominated north against southern rebels consisting mainly of Christians and animists.

Diplomats said they hope the peace deal, negotiated last month, will also help end the separate fighting and humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Powell will discuss the Darfur crisis with the Sudanese, Boucher said.

Aid agencies estimate that the conflict among Sudanese troops and two rebel groups has killed about 70,000 since March. Most of the victims died from disease, hunger and attacks by pro-government militia called Janjaweed.

The violence has forced nearly 2 million to flee Darfur since the conflict began in February 2003.