SIRTE, Libya (AFP) - A peace conference aimed at ending four years of conflict in Darfur opened here Saturday with an address by the African Union's special envoy for Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim.

Libyan leader Moumar Khadafi attended the opening, but all except six of the myriad of rebel groups involved in the conflict are boycotting the United Nations and AU-sponsored talks. Tho groups which are attending have only sent low-level representation.

The Sudanese government, which has sent a large delegation of some 30 ministers and officials, said it will announce a ceasefire at the talks, Khartoum's minister of state for foreign affairs Al-Sammani al-Wasila al-Sammani told AFP.

The talks are aimed at halting four years of violence in which the UN says 200,000 people have been killed, thousands raped, villages burnt and some two million people displaced.

The government of President Omar al-Beshir and its allied Janjaweed militia have been blamed for most of the violence in the troubled western region.

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when rebels demanded a greater share in the country's riches which they said were being seized by the Arab government and militia to the detriment of the African population of Sudan's western region.