Sudan 'arrests leading opposition figures'

Sudanese security agents arrested three opposition figures late on Wednesday, despite efforts to persuade them to join national dialogue talks that started last month, the alliance they are all part of said.

"This evening, the security apparatus arrested the head of the political committee, Siddig Yousif, chief of the legal committee, Yahya Hussein and Al-Azhari Ali," the National Consensus Forces said in a statement. 

Security agents arrested the three at their homes and took them to an unknown location, the statement from the opposition alliance said.

President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in the western Darfur region, has been urging political opponents to join a national dialogue he launched in October.

The talks are aimed at ending the conflicts on Sudan's border regions and righting its ailing economy.

Most mainstream opposition groups and rebels battling him in the Darfur region and South Kordofan and Blue Nile states have declined to join the dialogue, calling first for a meeting outside Sudan to agree the terms of the discussions.

The latest round of peace talks between the government and rebel groups ended on Wednesday without result.

Ethnic insurgents launched a rebellion against the Arab-dominated government in Darfur in 2003, complaining they were being marginalised.

Some 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict since then, according to the United Nations, with another 2.5 million people displaced in the western region.

The Sudanese government puts the death toll at 10,000 in Darfur.