A planned visit to Khartoum on Tuesday by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu and two other former world leaders is "not possible," the group said in a statement after visiting South Sudan.Tutu was to make the trip as chairman of The Elders, a group founded by former South African president Nelson Mandela.
"This Elders' delegation had hoped to visit Khartoum following their visit to Juba, but it was not possible to do so," they said in a news release which gave no further explanation.
The Elders had issued an earlier statement announcing a tentative presser in Khartoum on Tuesday.
"To my knowledge, they are expected and they are welcome," Sudan's foreign ministry front man Al-Obeid Meruh told AFP.
Their trip aimed "to encourage leaders of South Sudan and Sudan to take the path of peace for the benefit of their people and to draw attention to the human suffering caused by conflicts, particularly the growing refugee crisis in the border regions," an earlier statement from the Elders said.
Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland and Mary Robinson, who was an Irish president and also a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, were in the delegation with Tutu.