Chad rebels agree move to peace

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Leaders of the four main rebel groups in Chad have signed an agreement with the government to enter into peace negotiations to be held in Libya soon.

A BBC correspondent in Chad says they should pave the way for the deployment of a UN-approved peace force to the country's insecure eastern border.

The fighting in Sudan's Darfur region has spilled over into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic.

A rebel group had warned peacekeepers not to act as an interventionist force.

Some 3,000 mainly French EU troops and 300 UN police will be tasked with monitoring camps for people displaced by the violence.

Correspondents say rebel groups have waged an on-off rebellion against President Idriss Deby for years.

But it gathered momentum since the start of the Darfur conflict in 2003, with neighbouring countries accusing each other of supporting one another's rebel groups.

The BBC's Rene Dillah Yombrin in the capital, N'Djamena, says the exact details of the accord are not known.

The next round of the Darfur peace talks are expected to start in Tripoli at the end of October.

The UN says there are 240,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region in eastern Chad and 173,000 internally displaced people.

North-eastern CAR hosts some 2,660 refugees from Darfur and some 200,000 people have been displaced by an insurgency in the north.