KAMPALA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) officials will be stationed permanently at Ri-Kwangba, a rebel assembly point in southern Sudan, to monitor the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters camped there, a senior government official here has said.

    Ruhakana Rugunda, the Internal Affairs Minister and the head of the government delegation negotiating a peace deal with the rebel group, was quoted by the Daily Monitor on Tuesday as saying the AU monitors will be re-enforcing six colleagues from Uganda, LRA and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

    "These monitors will be drawn from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique each sending two officials who will be permanently based at Ri-Kwangba," Rugunda said at news conference in Kampala.

    The move was a fulfillment of LRA's demand for AU to monitor the cessation of hostilities agreement between the government and the LRA.

    The agreement was renewed last week for the third time since it was signed in August last year.

    According to the renewed agreement, the southern Sudan government, which is mediating the talks, will facilitate the movement of LRA rebels from Owiny-Ki-Bul, an assembly point near the Uganda-Sudan border to Ri-Kwangba near the Democratic Republic of Congo-Sudan border, contrary to the earlier agreement.

    "The LRA forces East of the Nile within southern Sudan, and those forces still on Uganda shall complete assembly in Ri-Kwangba within six weeks of the signature of this addendum," the agreement said in part.

    Rugunda explained that the parties changed position following request by the LRA to relocate to one area and reports by the southern Sudan government that the LRA fighters were intimidating its people at Owiny-Ki-Bul.

    The peace talks between the government and the rebel group are scheduled to resume on April 26 in Juba, southern Sudan.

    The talks which started last July are seen as a chance to end the two-decade-long LRA insurgency that has left tens of thousands of people dead and over 1.4 million people homeless in northern Uganda.