DHAKA: Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has told the BBC he will step down in 2020 when his current mandate ends.

Bashir also denied allegations of abuses perpetrated by the Sudanese forces in renewed violence against black African villages who took up arms in the country's western Darfur region.

The president has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on counts of genocide and war crimes, reports the BBC.

Bashir has been in power since 1989. He won elections in April last year.

He told the BBC’s Thomas Fessy that his job was ‘exhausting’ and his current term would be his last.

‘In 2020, there will be a new president and I will be an ex-president,’ he said.

However, skeptics will say that he had already pledged to step down in the past and later went back on his word, our correspondent says.

The UN says more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur since 2003 - with more than 100,000 this year alone.

BDST: 1229 HRS, APR 07, 2016
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