BRUSSELS/KHARTOUM (Agencies)

The European Union says it will send 130 observers to make sure Sudan's general elections in April are free and fair.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Thursday the April 11-18 vote will be "an important milestone" in bringing lasting peace to a country wracked by decades of fighting.

Veronique De Keyser, a member of the European Parliament, will lead more than 130 observers from 22 countries to assess the presidential and legislative elections in April.

"If the people don't understand really what is the meaning of the vote this could be for me at least the major trap, the major pitfall," she told reporters in Khartoum.

	If the people don't understand really what is the meaning of the vote this could be for me at least the major trap, the major pitfall
EU observer Veronique De Keyser

"And it's difficult because ... some people have never voted," she said, stressing this was not deliberate and that the EU has pledged money for voter education.

"So at the beginning of the process we have to admit that it will not be perfect but we have to pay attention to that," she said, adding the road to democracy was long.

A 2005 peace deal ended a north-south conflict that killed 2 million people, but by then the western Darfur region was at war. The election will be a test run for a 2011 independence referendum in southern Sudan.

The vote will be Sudan's first multiparty election in 24 years.

Most complex

Analysts have described the elections as some of the most complex in the world, with at least six different votes and likely more than 1,000 different ballot papers.

De Keyser said the EU formed the observer mission as soon as they received an invitation from Sudan's National Elections Commission.

Some Sudanese opposition has questioned whether they were coming too late and were only legitimizing an already flawed vote, because they missed the key registration period.

But De Keyser said they could document past problems and that they could not come before being invited by authorities.

She said their team could not cover every part of Sudan, Africa's largest country, but that it would be able to detect any massive attempts at fraud.

"I cannot tell you that an incident cannot occur... but at least to see very well organized attempt to fraud -- that is possible with our methodology," she said.

Candidates in both Sudan's north and semi-autonomous south have complained of harassment by the authorities and of freedom restricting laws.

Voting will last three days from April 11 and the result is expected on April 18.