Sudan's landmark peace deal with rebels that seeks to end decades of war will cost $7.5 billion, the finance minister has said -- a vast sum for the poverty-stricken nation.

Under the October 3 deal between Khartoum and a coalition of rebel groups, the government pledged to fund major development projects in areas ruined by years of war, including in the western Darfur region.

"The implementation of the peace plan requires at least $7.5 billion over 10 years," Heba Mohamed Ali Ahmed said, according to Sudanese media reports on Friday.

Ahmed made the announcement a day earlier during a discussion with governors and local officials.

Sudan's economy is in crisis, laid low by long years of civil war under Bashir's rule, US sanctions and the 2011 secession of the oil-rich south.

Last month, the government declared a state of emergency to avert a further downturn.

The peace deal covers a number of tricky issues, from land ownership, reparations and compensation to wealth and power sharing and the return of refugees and internally displaced people.

Under the agreement, the government is set to pay $300 million immediately for reconstruction in Darfur, Ahmed said, followed by payments over the next decade totalling $1.3 billion.

"The finance ministry must create an environment favourable to investment in order to encourage the domestic and international private sector to invest in less-developed regions," she added.

Sudan's rebels are largely drawn from minority groups that fought marginalisation under the regime of toppled president Omar al-Bashir.

Economic hardship, which triggered the protests that led to the ouster of Bashir in 2019, remains a huge challenge.

"The success of a peace plan depends entirely on how to solve the basic problems that have caused war and conflict," Ahmed said.

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Sudanese protesters block key port over peace deal
Khartoum (AFP) Oct 5, 2020
Hundreds of people on Monday blockaded Sudan's Red Sea port to protest against a landmark peace agreement signed at the weekend, complaining that they had been excluded from the deal. The protesters are from among the Beja people, who were angry that representatives who signed Saturday's deal with the government came from the rival Beni Amer tribe. Since Sunday they have blocked the docks and the highway linking Port Sudan, the transit point for most of the country's foreign trade, to the rest o ... read more