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SOUTH AFRICAN Nobel peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu arrived in Sudan on Sunday heading a group of statesmen known as The Elders seeking to help peace efforts in the western region of Darfur.

The delegation includes former Cape Town archbishop Tutu, former United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, ex-US president Jimmy Carter and former South African president Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel.

The mission is the first for The Elders, a group launched by fellow Nobel laureate Mandela in July to help reduce conflict and despair in the world.

The group is due to meet Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir as well as opposition politicians, local community leaders, and people displaced from their homes, including in the Darfur town of Al-Fasher.

They arrived in Sudan the day after at least 10 African Union peacekeepers were killed in the bloodiest attack yet on their three-year-old mission in the war-ravaged region of Darfur, where Washington says genocide is taking place.

"This attack shows how desperate the situation is and how big is the need for peace," Tutu told reporters.

"We are here in Sudan because we want to listen to the voices of those who have not been heard and want to explore ways that we can lend our own voices to peace".

Conflict in Darfur, combined with the effects of famine, has left at least 200,000 people dead and two million displaced since Khartoum enlisted Janjaweed Arab militia allies to put down an ethnic minority revolt in 2003. Sudanese authorities say only 9,000 people have died.

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