The World - News from March 9, 1989

Sudan’s Prime Minister Sadek Mahdi has sent an envoy to try to persuade rebels in the south to accept a truce so that food may be distributed to 100,000 people reported starving to death in the famine-ravaged region. Mahdi told reporters that he sent his interior minister to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to meet with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He also said he has accepted a peace agreement that was previously rejected by his Umma Party and Islamic militants in Parliament. Meanwhile, a U.N.-sponsored conference opened in Khartoum, and relief officials said they hoped to get 100,000 tons of food and medicines into southern Sudan before the spring rainy season.