Sudanese leaders and rebel commanders have taken a vital first step towards ending 17 years of conflict as they agreed Monday on a historic peace deal.

Leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an umbrella organisation of rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, jubilated after stamping the agreement which was “initialled” and not signed, as a way to leave the door open for two key holdout rebel groups to join in a “final” agreement. However, the two rebel factions have refused to take part in the deal.

Officials met in the capital of neighbouring South Sudan as part of efforts to celebrate the most tangible success ever recorded since last year’s fall of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir and the establishment of an uneasy transitional government.

Making peace with rebels has been a cornerstone of Sudan’s transitional government, which came to power in the months after the overthrow of Bashir in April 2019 as Sudan’s government-led militarily by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of a sovereign council, and on the civilian side by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, maintained that it views peace-building as the cornerstone for all its efforts.

In attendance were both Burhan and Hamdok, while South Sudanese President Salva Kiir oversaw the ceremony.

It would be worthy of note that not less than 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels took up arms there in 2003, the United Nations said. Conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile erupted in 2011, in the wake of South Sudan’s independence, and brought about two decades of war.

The agreement covers important issues around security, land ownership, transitional justice, power-sharing, the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting, the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army.

Rebel members of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had temporarily initialed the agreement with the government late on Saturday.

However, an SLM faction led by Abdelwahid Nour and a wing of the SPLM-N headed by Abdelaziz al-Hilu has refused to take part in the agreement.