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The fighting in Sudan continues this Sunday, while the emissaries of the army and the paramilitaries, in conflict for power, continue without leaking anything about the ongoing ceasefire negotiation in Saudi Arabia.
As every day since the conflict broke out on April 15, the noise of the fighting resounds in different parts of the capital, Khartoum, where the five million inhabitants survive locked up in their homes for fear of stray bullets, without water and electricity. in many cases and with scant reserves of food and cash.
The Americans and Saudis say the warring parties are negotiating a truce in Saudi Arabia. But neither the army of General Abdel Fatah al-Burhan nor the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) of rival General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo tell anything about the conversations between their envoys. “The army delegation will only talk about the truce and how to apply it correctly to facilitate humanitarian access,” General Nabil Abdallah, an army spokesman, limited himself to telling AFP.
The FAR paramilitaries did not say anything about these negotiations, which are taking place after a string of ceasefires that have been systematically violated in the previous weeks. Riyadh and Washington did not announce either the formal start of the talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah or the exact content of the talks.
– An “operational” framework –
Meanwhile, several witnesses reported to AFP fighting and airstrikes in various neighborhoods of Khartoum. The war has so far caused 700 deaths, some 5,000 wounded and more than 335,000 displaced. According to Aly Verjee, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, for this ceasefire to go ahead, unlike the previous ones, the operational details will have to be specified and observation and sanction mechanisms applied.
A “geographical and operational framework of the ceasefire” is needed, which includes the “cessation of air strikes or the withdrawal of combatants from civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals,” the researcher told AFP. Before going into open conflict, Generals Al Burhan and Daglo together carried out a coup to oust civilians from power in October 2021.
Two years earlier, under the pressure of a large popular mobilization, the army had overthrown the dictator Omar al Bashir, who had been in power for three decades. But hopes for a transition to democracy were dashed by the 2021 coup, and internationally mediated negotiations to integrate FAR paramilitaries into the army only exacerbated tension between the two rival generals. Thus, on April 15, when they were to meet to continue negotiating, they preferred to resort to arms.
– Long war ahead –
For the negotiations in Jeddah, the FAR sent close collaborators to General Daglo and his brother Abderrahim, who finances the paramilitaries thanks to his gold mines. On the side of the regular army, several high-ranking officials known for their hostility to the paramilitaries are participating. For its part, the Arab League will meet this Sunday the foreign ministers of its member countries, who are deeply divided as to the strategy to follow in the face of the Sudanese conflict.
According to experts, the war is expected to be a long one, since the two opposing parties seem to have the same combat capabilities and little willingness to negotiate before having prevailed on the ground. If the war lasts, the UN warns that up to 2.5 million more people will suffer from hunger, a scourge that already affects a third of the country’s population of 45 million inhabitants.
