SUDAN CIVILIANS SAY SAUDI TALKS ARE ONLY HOPE TO END SUFFERING

▶ About 117,000 people have fled country, and those who remain in capital hide at home as fighting continues

Sudanese civilians say they are pinning their hopes of relief from more than three weeks of fighting on talks between the warring factions that began in Saudi Arabia at the weekend.

Clashes between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have continued despite a number of ceasefires, leaving hundreds dead and triggering mass departures from the capital Khartoum and surrounding areas.

There has been little information on the progress of the talks between the army and RSF that began on Saturday in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

But both sides have said they would only try to tackle humanitarian issues like safe passage, not an end to the war.

“If the Jeddah negotiations fail to stop the war this would mean that we won’t be able to return to our homes and our lives,” said Tamader Ibrahim, a 35-year-old government employee in the city of Khartoum North, across the Blue Nile from Khartoum itself.

“We’re waiting on these negotiations because they’re our only hope,” he told Reuters.

Terrified Khartoum residents reported more fighting in the city yesterday, as they hid in their homes amid power cuts and sweltering heat.

A southern Khartoum resident told AFP that their family could hear “the sound of air strikes which appeared to come from near a market in central Khartoum”.

Mahjoub Salah, a 28-year-old doctor, said the areas of the capital being hit by violence changed from day to day.

Mr Salah said he witnessed heavy fighting and a neighbour getting shot in the abdomen in his central Khartoum district of Al Amarat last month.

Mr Salah has moved to the south-east of the capital.

“We’re still waiting for our passports to get issued, but we don’t know how long this will take,” he said. “Then our plan is to travel from Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia.” Thousands of people are pushing to leave from Port Sudan on boats to Saudi Arabia, paying for expensive commercial flights through the country’s only functioning airport, or using evacuation flights to escape the violence.

“It’s very dangerous everywhere,” said Rawaa Hamad, who escaped from Port Sudan on an evacuation flight carrying 71 people to Qatar yesterday.

In Sudan, she said, there is “no safety now, unfortunately”. Ms Hamad said the people were enduring “a lack of everything – a lack of water, lack of fuel, lack of medicine, lack of even hospitals and doctors”.

According to the latest tally from the Sudan’s Doctors Union, At least 481 civilians have been killed in Khartoum since fighting began on April 15. It said more than 2,560 civilians have been wounded in the violence.

In addition, the union said, at least 100 people were killed in clashes last month between armed fighters in the city of Geneina, in Darfur region.

Hospitals are still out of service in Geneina and an accurate count of the wounded was hard to make, the doctors’ group said late on Sunday.

Fighting in Darfur broke out a few days after the military, led by army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and RSF, led by his former right-hand man Gen Mohamed Dagalo, took up arms against each other in Khartoum. It is seen as evidence that conflict in the capital could escalate to other parts of the East African country.

The US-Saudi initiative is the first serious attempt to end fighting that has derailed an internationally backed plan to usher in civilian rule following years of unrest, and created a humanitarian crisis.

“Pre-negotiation” talks began on Saturday and “will continue in the coming days in the expectation of reaching an effective short-term ceasefire to facilitate humanitarian assistance”, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.

Goals include reaching “an effective short-term halt” to the fighting, facilitating aid deliveries, restoring basic services and setting “a timetable for expanded negotiations to reach a permanent cessation of hostilities”, the Saudi ministry added.

The UN top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, has also travelled to Jeddah. A UN official said yesterday that Mr Griffiths had “asked to join the negotiations” between the warring sides, but that his request had not yet been approved.

A major breakthrough would be to secure humanitarian corridors to allow aid through Port Sudan to Khartoum and to the strife-torn Darfur region bordering Chad.

Other mediation efforts have yet to bear fruit.

The African Union – which holds little influence after suspending Sudan following a military takeover in 2021 – and East African regional bloc the Intergovernmental Authority on Development 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.

The UN 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.

Aid agencies fear the influx of refugees from Sudan will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis in South Sudan.

If the Jeddah negotiations fail to stop the war this would mean that we won’t be able to return to our homes and our lives TAMADER IBRAHIM

Khartoum North resident