Fighting flares hours after agreed ceasefire
PRESIDENTS of Sudan’s capital again awoke to heavy clashes Sunday morning just hours after rival generals agreed to an upcoming one-week ceasefire amid ongoing talks in Saudi Arabia.
The ceasefire – the latest after many successive truces that have been systematically violated – is set to go into effect at 9.45pm today,, the US and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement.
The ceasefire “shall remain in effect for seven days and may be extended with the agreement of both parties”, the statement said after talks in Jeddah.
Multiple truces have been violated since fighting erupted five weeks ago, which the Saudi foreign ministry acknowledged in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency early yesterday.
“Unlike previous ceasefires, the agreement reached in Jeddah was signed by the parties and will be supported by a US-Saudi and international-supported ceasefire monitoring mechanism,” it said.
But Khartoum residents, who for weeks have been sheltering from brutal urban warfare amid desperately low supplies of food and vital resources , were sceptical that this time would be any different.
“They have announced truces that they have not held to before,” said Hussein Mohammed, who remains in Khartoum North, sheltering with his sick mother even as their neighbourhood became deserted.
“We hope that this time mediators can monitor that the ceasefire is implemented,” he told AFP, adding his mother has been unable to make her regular doctor’s appointments since before the conflict on April 15.
The fighting pits the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
About 1 000 people have been killed and over a million displaced throughout the weeks of intense fighting, leaving millions more with sporadic access to water, electricity or medicine.
Along with the capital, the warscarred western region of Darfur has seen some the worst of the fighting.
“We do not trust the warring sides,” said Adam Issa, a shop owner in El-Geneina, West Darfur. “Every time they announce a truce and they go back to fighting. We want a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary truce.”
The region is still reeling from a conflict that erupted in 2003 when former autocrat Omar al-Bashir unleashed the feared Janjaweed militia – which formed the basis for the RSF – to crush a rebellion by ethnic minority groups.
In October 2021, the warring generals collaborated to oust a civilian government, derailing a transition to democracy after Bashir’s ouster in 2019. They installed a ruling sovereign council with Burhan at its head and Daglo as his deputy.