Sudan was thrown into deadly chaos when fighting broke out on April 15 between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The battles have since killed hundreds, wounded thousands and left millions barricaded inside their homes amid dire shortages of water, food and basic supplies.
The feuding generals have sent representatives to Saudi Arabia for talks on establishing a humanitarian truce in an effort also backed by the United States, but to no avail so far.
By Monday, the talks had yielded "no major progress", a Saudi diplomat told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"A permanent ceasefire isn't on the table... Every side believes it is capable of winning the battle," the diplomat added.
In Khartoum, a city of five million, terrified residents reported more combat, now in its fourth week, as they hid out in their homes amid power outages and sweltering heat.
A southern Khartoum resident told AFP the family could hear "the sound of airstrikes which appeared to come from near a market in central Khartoum".
- 'Dangerous everywhere' -
The fighting has sparked a mass exodus of foreigners and of Sudanese, in both air and sea evacuations and arduous overland journeys to Egypt, Chad, South Sudan and other neighbouring countries.
"It's very dangerous everywhere," said Rawaa Hamad, who escaped from Port Sudan on an evacuation flight to Qatar on Monday carrying 71 people.
In Sudan, she said, there is "no safety now, unfortunately", with its people enduring "a lack of everything -- a lack of water, lack of fuel, lack of medicine, lack of even hospitals and doctors".
The battles have killed more than 750 people and injured over 5,000, according to a count by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The United Nations has warned of a widening humanitarian crisis after fighting has already displaced 335,000 people and created 117,000 refugees.
More than 60,000 Sudanese have fled north into Egypt, 30,000 west to Chad, and over 27,000 to South Sudan, according to the UN.
The UN top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, has travelled to the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, the site of what Washington and Riyadh have labelled "pre-negotiation talks".
A UN official said on Monday that Griffiths had "asked to join the negotiations" between the warring sides, but that his request had not been approved so far.
- Mediation efforts -
Saudi Arabia is pushing for "a timetable for expanded negotiations to reach a permanent cessation of hostilities", its foreign ministry said.
The Jeddah talks, which are set to continue "in the following days", aim to reach "an effective short-term halt" to the fighting, facilitating aid delivery and restoring basic services, it added.
A major breakthrough would be to secure humanitarian corridors to allow aid through Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast to Khartoum and to the strife-torn Darfur region bordering Chad.
Since mid-April, multiple truce deals have been declared and quickly violated in the poverty-stricken country with a history of instability.
Mediation efforts have multiplied.
The African Union -- which holds little leverage after suspending Sudan following a coup in 2021 -- and East African regional bloc IGAD are pushing for discussions mediated by South Sudan.
The Arab League on Sunday called for an end to hostilities and the preservation of Sudan's "sovereignty", but without specifying details.
Heavyweights in the pan-Arab bloc are divided on Sudan, with Egypt supporting Burhan and the United Arab Emirates seen to be backing the RSF, according to experts.
UN aid chief in Saudi for Sudan talks as fighting flares
Khartoum (AFP) May 7, 2023 -
The UN's top aid official was in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for ceasefire talks between Sudan's warring generals, as concern grows for the humanitarian situation at the start of a fourth week of gun battles and air strikes in the Sudanese capital.
Multiple truce deals have been declared, without effect, since fighting erupted between army and paramilitary forces on April 15 in the poverty-stricken country with a history of political instability.
Fierce combat since then has killed hundreds of people, most of them civilians, wounded thousands and sparked multiple warnings of a "catastrophic" humanitarian crisis.
More than 100,000 people have already fled the country.
Ahmed al-Amin, a resident of the Haj Yousif district in northeastern Khartoum, on Sunday told AFP he "saw fighter jets flying above our heads and heard the sounds of explosions and anti-aircraft" fire.
Across the Red Sea in the Saudi city of Jeddah, talks were underway aiming for a ceasefire that could push efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged population.
Those unable to flee face dire shortages of water, food, medicines and other staples.
Even before the war began about one-third of Sudan's people required humanitarian assistance, the UN said.
The fighting has seen aid workers killed, health facilities attacked, and the UN projects that the number of "acutely food insecure people" in Sudan could increase by between two and 2.5 million if the war is prolonged.
Analysts expect that it will be.
- 'Gunfire everywhere' -
Martin Griffiths, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, was in Jeddah Sunday "and the purpose of his visit is to engage in humanitarian issues related to Sudan," spokesperson Eri Kaneko said.
In Port Sudan last week, Griffiths said he had been informed by the UN's World Food Programme that six trucks bringing aid to the Darfur region had been "looted en route".
He called for security guarantees "clearly given by militaries, to protect humanitarian systems to deliver".
There was no indication that Griffiths would play a direct role in the Saudi discussions about a possible ceasefire.
The generals leading the warring parties have said little about the talks being held in Jeddah since Saturday.
On Thursday US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that broadens authority to impose sanctions over Sudan's conflict. It did not name potential targets.
Army spokesman Brigadier General Nabil Abdalla said the Jeddah talks were on how a truce "can be correctly implemented to serve the humanitarian side", while Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, only said on Twitter that he welcomed the technical discussions.
Riyadh and Washington have supported the "pre-negotiation talks" and urged the belligerents to "get actively involved".
Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit expressed his support Sunday for the "indirect negotiations" in order to prevent "an escalation of the current conflict" into a prolonged war "that divides Sudan into warring regions."
At the same meeting of the bloc in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned of "a slide into a worse and more dangerous security situation" affecting the region.
Heavyweights in the pan-Arab bloc are divided on Sudan. Egypt solidly supports the regular army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the UAE is in favour of the RSF, according to experts.
Egypt, to which more than 60,000 refugees have fled, announced Shoukry will head Monday to South Sudan and Chad, both of which also border Sudan and have themselves received tens of thousands of people escaping the war.
Thousands have also crossed into neighbouring Ethiopia, most of them third-country nationals.
"This is my second war that I flee," Syrian refugee Salam Kanhoush told AFP at the Ethiopian border town of Metema.
Women carrying infants and donkey carts laden with baggage converge on the bustling, dusty crossing.
"Our safety and life comes first," Eritrean refugee Sara told AFP, asking to be identified only by her first name. "We can't be thinking of the things that we have left behind" in Sudan.
The one thing they were relieved to abandon was the violence. Muhammad Yusuf, a Sudanese refugee, described "gunfire everywhere" and "expecting to be a victim at anytime."
- 'No apparent consensus' -
Hopes for international efforts to silence the guns are modest.
"The lowest common denominator of the international community is a cessation of hostilities," said Sudan researcher Aly Verjee at Sweden's University of Gothenburg. "But there is no apparent consensus on what to do beyond that initial objective."
Burhan and Daglo jointly staged Sudan's latest coup in 2021.
That putsch derailed a transition to democracy after the ouster two years earlier of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir following mass pro-democracy protests.
Bashir had unleashed the Janjaweed militia in response to an uprising in Sudan's Darfur region in 2003, leading to war crimes charges against him and others.
The RSF are descended from the Janjaweed.
Since their coup, Burhan and Daglo have fallen out in a bitter power struggle, lastly over a plan to integrate the RSF into the army.
At least 700 people have been killed in the fighting, which has spread beyond Khartoum to Darfur and elsewhere, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The Sudanese doctors' union said 479 of the dead were civilians.
Related Links
Africa News - Resources, Health, Food
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
