Al-Burhan and Hemeti Delegations Resume Talks in Jeddah with No Horizon to End the War
The delegations of the Sudanese army and the rapid support forces resumed indirect talks in the Red Sea city of Jeddah with US and Saudi mediation, Al-Arabiya television reported, quoting unnamed sources, saying the talks would focus on stopping the fighting.
“These developments come as fighting intensifies in Khartoum and elsewhere, including in the Darfur region, with no signs of an end to the war.”
Loud explosions and clashes rocked houses in Khartoum on Tuesday as fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continued, witnesses said, amid fears that residents of the capital were under a “total siege”.
For the eighth week in a row, battles between the army led by Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (Hemeti) have continued, with aid organizations warning of a “massive humanitarian crisis” in Sudan.
Residents in the capital reported “clashes with all types of weapons south of Khartoum,” with residents hearing “explosions that shook the walls of houses.”
Others reported hearing “sounds of heavy artillery shelling from army positions north of Omdurman” in the northwest of the capital.
“Like the country’s other population, the capital’s estimated five million residents have suffered a sharp decline in services and food since the conflict began.” Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have left Khartoum. “The war has displaced more than 1.5 million people, including 425,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries.”
The UN says 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, are now in need of assistance and protection.
Aid agencies are once again warning of the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Sudan, which was already one of the world’s poorest countries before the recent fighting.
“We are facing a massive humanitarian crisis that is only getting worse as the economy and health care collapse,” Pierre Kramer, deputy regional director for Africa for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told reporters in Geneva.
He warned that challenges will increase as “the flood season approaches, a looming hunger crisis, and outbreaks of diseases that may become even more inevitable.”
The rainy season in Sudan begins in June and medical and relief workers have warned it could isolate parts of the country and increase the risk of epidemics and diseases such as malaria and cholera.
On Monday, the United Nations Integrated Mission in Support of the Transition in Sudan (UNAMID) warned that the situation in and around the Sudanese capital “remains of great concern.”
He also noted that the situation in the western region of Darfur “continues to deteriorate,” stressing that human rights officials “are currently documenting dozens of incidents including killings, arrests, possible disappearances, attacks on hospitals, sexual violence and other grave violations against children.”
Although the two sides have concluded several truces recently, they have accused each other of breaching the truce. Talks hosted by the US and Saudi mediators in Jeddah stalled last week after the military withdrew.
But Saudi Arabia and the United States, whose Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit the kingdom on Tuesday, called on Sunday for a return to the negotiating table to broker a new ceasefire.
The Sudanese Sovereignty Council (SCC) reported that Al-Burhan had received a telephone call from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
Al-Borhan stressed “confidence in the Jeddah pulpit, which leads to sustainable peace,” and reiterated the necessity of “the rebels’ commitment to get out of hospitals, service centers and citizens’ homes, evacuate the wounded, and open the routes of providing humanitarian aid so that the Jeddah pulpit may achieve its success,” in reference to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the former partner in the government that was classified by the army as a “rebel movement” after the outbreak of fighting between them.
Two days after the announcement, Deqlo received a phone call from Prince Faisal bin Farhan, in which he also confirmed the support of the Rapid Reaction Force for the Jeddah platform.
“Despite repeated truces, there is no imminent settlement in sight for Sudan to end the fighting between the army and RSF, as clashes spread to other areas outside the capital’s borders, and its people, who were unable to leave the country, are struggling under a crisis that had already begun before clashes broke out in mid-April.”
Clashes between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took place in the capital Khartoum by road and by air on Tuesday, worsening the widespread violence and chaos in a region already suffering from shortages of food and medicine.
“The fighting has taken a heavy toll on the capital, where residents who have not yet left are suffering from heavy fighting, airstrikes and looting.” “Artillery and air bombardment continued throughout the night, and residents in southern and eastern Khartoum and northern Bahri said they heard artillery clashes and gunfire confrontations on Tuesday morning.”
The two sides clashed overnight in the streets of Omdurman around the army’s main engineering base. “The latter, apparently preferring airstrikes over ground fighting, was able to maintain positions around the base but was unable to roll back the RSF, which controls most of the city.”
“We, residents of Banat district in Omdurman, have become the war zone, with violent clashes and shelling around us because our house is near the Corps of Engineers,” said Jawaher Mohammed, 45. “We are afraid of death and we are afraid that we will leave our house and it will be robbed.”
Neighborhood resistance committees say thieves, some of them Khartoum residents, loot property, steal cars, break closets and occupy homes.
“Aid groups have struggled to provide large-scale assistance to Khartoum’s residents, who face shortages of electricity and water, and dwindling supplies in shops and pharmacies.” Neighborhood resistance committees organize such assistance but struggle as the fighting intensifies.
“We were not able to distribute medicine because of the aerial bombardment and artillery,” said an activist who asked not to be named. The fighting extended beyond Khartoum into the western region of Darfur, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were founded and still maintain their base of influence. “The fighting also hit El Obeid, a main road between Khartoum and Darfur.”
