As deadly fighting continues into its eighth week in Sudan, the United States and Saudi Arabia are making a renewed effort to facilitate truce talks between the warring generals. On Sunday, foreign mediators called for the parties to agree on and effectively implement a new ceasefire, with the ultimate goal of achieving a permanent cessation of hostilities, as announced by Riyadh.
The previous five-day extension of a truce brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia expired on Saturday evening, with no signs of the conflict subsiding and concerns that the rival factions were on the brink of escalation. Several ceasefires have been agreed upon and subsequently broken, leading to the US imposing sanctions on the two warring generals on Thursday, condemning the “appalling” violence perpetrated by both sides.
Despite the collapse of the ceasefire talks, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) envoys remain in Jeddah, according to the Saudi foreign ministry. The RSF claimed on Sunday that it had shot down a fighter jet after the army launched an unexpected airborne assault on their positions in northern Khartoum. However, a military source stated that the Chinese-made jet crashed near the Wadi Seidna base due to a technical malfunction, as witnesses reported seeing the aircraft engulfed in flames while flying from south to north in the capital.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimates that over 1,800 people have been killed in the conflict, and the UN reports that 1.2 million people have been displaced, with over 425,000 fleeing the country.
The fighting began on April 15 in the Sudanese capital between the army led by Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the RSF commanded by his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. The conflict has since escalated with deadly battles in Khartoum and the war-torn Darfur region, leading to the displacement of residents and severe shortages of essential goods.
The Saudi statement issued on Sunday precedes the arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Saudi Arabia, where discussions on Sudan are expected to take place. Previous truces were established to facilitate humanitarian aid and safe passage to the conflict-affected areas of Sudan, but like previous agreements, they were consistently violated by both sides.
On Wednesday, the Sudanese army withdrew from the talks in Jeddah, and the following day, US-Saudi mediators officially suspended the negotiations, stating that they were prepared to resume talks once the parties demonstrated a genuine commitment to a ceasefire. Both Burhan and Daglo have repeatedly pledged to protect civilians and establish humanitarian corridors. However, there have been reports of intensified fighting since the army’s departure from the Jeddah talks, including an army bombardment on Thursday that allegedly killed 18 civilians in a Khartoum market, according to a committee of human rights lawyers.
The conflict has placed over 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, in need of aid and protection in a country that was already one of the world’s poorest prior to the outbreak of violence, according to the UN.
