Saudi Arabia succeeds in brokering a new ceasefire for Sudan and grants the people 72 hours of rest
Warring Sudanese generals have agreed to a new 72-hour truce starting Sunday after fighting intensified with deadly airstrikes in Khartoum and a mass exodus of wounded from Darfur across the border to Chad, U.S. and Saudi mediators said.
Airstrikes killed 17 civilians, including five children, in the capital Khartoum on Saturday, a citizen group said, while medics in Chad reported that hundreds of wounded from Darfur were seeking treatment.
A New Truce
According to the Guardian, multiple truces were agreed and broken during the two-month war, including after the United States imposed sanctions on the generals when an earlier attempt collapsed at the end of May.
A 24-hour ceasefire between 10 June and 11 June allowed Khartoum residents a brief respite from airstrikes and artillery exchanges that destroyed entire neighborhoods in the capital, but fighting resumed within 10 minutes of the ceasefire ending.
“Saudi Arabia and the United States of America announce that representatives of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have agreed on a 72-hour ceasefire throughout Sudan,” a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement said on Saturday.
“Mediators said the ceasefire came into effect at 6 a.m. local time on Sunday, with both sides agreeing to refrain during the ceasefire from actions, attacks, use of warplanes or drones, artillery shelling, reinforcement of positions, resupply of forces, or attempting to achieve military gains.”
“They also agreed to allow free movement and humanitarian access throughout Sudan,” the mediators continued.
Casualties
The UK newspaper reports that the UN has confirmed that nearly 25 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – are in need of assistance, with witnesses saying: Airstrikes have intensified in the capital over the past few days.
On Saturday, warplanes bombed several residential neighborhoods in Khartoum, killing “17 civilians, including five children,” according to the Committee to Support Citizens, and hundreds of kilometers west of Khartoum, killing up to 1,100 people in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State alone, according to the US State Department.
Hundreds of wounded fleeing Sudan’s Darfur region are drowning in the world’s growing attention, medics in Chad said on Saturday.
“More than 600 patients, most of them with gunshot wounds, arrived at the facility over three days – more than half on Friday”, Médecins Sans Frontières said.
