Sudan’s President flees Nigeria as ICC calls for arrest on genocide charges

PanARMENIAN.Net - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has left Nigeria, where his presence at an African Union HIV/AIDS summit defied International Criminal Court (ICC) calls for his arrest on charges of genocide and war crimes, officials said on Tuesday, July 16, according to Reuters.

His press secretary and Nigerian hosts both denied reports in the local media that he had left early fearing arrest.

Monday was the main day of the two-day summit. Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, chairman of the African Union, was the only leader who was at a breakfast for them at the presidency on Tuesday morning, an official there said.

But Nigeria's presidency said two others, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, had also stayed on for the second day.

"President Bashir returned normally to Khartoum after participating in the summit in Abuja to resume his work in Khartoum," his press secretary Emad Said told Reuters.

Bashir, who is accused of orchestrating genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region in which some 200,000 people were killed, arrived in Nigeria on Sunday, to the chagrin of human rights campaigners.