Strikes rock Sudan as talks yield no breakthrough

A Saudi diplomat said both warring sides consider themselves ‘capable of winning the battle’.

Relief cargo for Sudan is loaded in Dubai on Monday. Picture: AFP

Airstrikes again shook Sudan’s capital on Monday while the latest truce talks in Jeddah yielded no progress and a Saudi diplomat said both sides consider themselves “capable of winning the battle”.

Sudan was thrown into deadly chaos when fighting broke out on April 15 between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-­Burhan and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Battles have since killed hundreds, wounded thousands and uprooted hundreds of thousands, leading to fears of security fallout beyond Sudan’s borders.

The warring generals have sent representatives to Saudi Arabia for talks on establishing a ­humanitarian truce in an effort also backed by the US.

Washington and Riyadh have labelled these “pre-negotiation talks”. By Monday, the discussions had yielded “no major progress”, a Saudi diplomat said.

“A permanent ceasefire isn’t on the table ... Every side believes it is capable of winning the battle.”

For Kholood Khair, founder of the Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory, the delegations “are there mostly to curry favour with the Saudis and the Americans, rather than to credibly use this platform as a means to reach an agreement.”

In Khartoum, terrified residents reported more combat.

A southern Khartoum resident said they could hear the sound of airstrikes that appeared to come from near a market in the city centre.

The fighting has sparked a mass exodus of foreigners and of Sudanese, in land, air and sea evacuations. “It’s very dangerous everywhere,” said Rawaa Hamad, who escaped from Port Sudan on an evacuation flight carrying 71 people to Qatar on Monday.

In Sudan, she said, people endure “a lack of everything – a lack of water, lack of fuel, lack of medicine, lack of even hospitals and doctors”.

The battles have killed more than 750 people and injured more than 5000, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

In Sudan’s long-troubled western region, almost 200 people have been killed in West Darfur state over the past two weeks, the UN said. It has warned of a widening humanitarian crisis, even as facilities of the UN and other aid groups have faced “large-scale looting”, including at the World Food Program in Khartoum at the weekend, a UN spokesperson said on Monday.

Fighting has already displaced 335,000 people and created in excess of 120,000 refugees who have fled north into Egypt, west to Chad, and to South Sudan.

Egypt’s foreign ministry warned of “the great humanitarian tragedy” of the conflict, “directly affecting Sudan’s neigh­bouring countries”, in a statement on Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry’s visit on Monday to Chad and then South Sudan.

The UN top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, has travelled to the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, and a UN official said Mr Griffiths had “asked to join the negotiations” between the warring sides, but his request had not been approved so far.

Saudi Arabia is pushing for “a timetable for expanded negoti­ations to reach a permanent cessation of hostilities”, its foreign ministry said.

The Jeddah talks, which are set to continue “in the following days”, aim to reach “an effective short-term halt” to the fighting, facilitating aid delivery and restoring basic services, it added.

US ambassador John Godfrey, while not commenting directly on the Jeddah talks, said in a statement that “Our immediate priority is to reach a durable ceasefire” and enable humanitarian assistance.

Multiple truce deals have been declared and quickly violated, in a country with a history of instability. Mediation efforts have multiplied. The Arab bloc is divided on Sudan, with Egypt supporting Lieutenant General Burhan and the United Arab Emirates backing the RSF.

AFP