After nearly two months of violent conflict causing a serious humanitarian crisis, the camps of the two warring generals in Sudan have accepted a new truce. The 24-hour ceasefire came into effect on Saturday June 10 from 6 a.m. Khartoum time (4 a.m. GMT). According to witnesses, the situation seemed calm in the early morning in the capital Khartoum. But the inhabitants have few illusions about his respect, after multiple truces violated on both sides.
“A one-day truce is the least we aspire to. We can’t wait to put an end to this damn war,” Mahmoud Bachir, a resident of the Bahri district, told AFP. Issam Mohamed Omar, who lived in the center of Khartoum and fled to Omdurman, the twin city, wants the paramilitaries to leave. “For me, a truce that does not drive the FSRs out of the house from which they drove me out three weeks ago is useless,” he said as many residents denounced the FRS’s stranglehold on accommodations.
This is yet another ceasefire in the war that began on April 15 between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdane’s Rapid Support Forces (FSR). Daglo. The parties pledged to cease violence across the country to allow “the arrival of humanitarian aid”, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry. The general command of the armed forces, however, declared that it reserves the “right to respond to any violation that the rebels may commit”.
“We reiterate our full commitment to the ceasefire,” the paramilitaries said. Sudan specialist Aly Verjee, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, hardly sees how this truce could hold more than the others. “It’s hard to see that a truce based on the same criteria (as before), especially of such a short duration, will lead to a materially different result. That said, even a decrease in violence would be welcome for those living under fire,” he said.
The war has already claimed more than 1,800 lives, according to the organization ACLED, which specializes in collecting information in conflict zones, as well as 2 million displaced persons and refugees according to the UN. In the combat zones, which take place mainly in the capital Khartoum and the vast region of Darfur (west), the NGOs continue to warn of the deterioration of the humanitarian situation.
“In Khartoum, we estimate that only 20% of health facilities are still functioning,” the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Alfonso Verdu Perez, said Friday at a press conference in Geneva. “In recent weeks, we have managed to deliver surgical equipment to ten hospitals” in the capital, “but the needs are immense and there is still a lot to do,” he added.
“If the parties do not respect the 24-hour ceasefire, the mediators should consider adjourning the Jeddah talks,” warned the Saudi and American mediators who have been overseeing negotiations for weeks in Saudi Arabia between rival camps. . Riyadh said last week it was seeking with the Americans to “continue discussions” to reach an “effective” ceasefire, after talks were formally suspended.
Diplomatically, the Sudanese government this week declared the UN envoy to Sudan, Germany’s Volker Perthes, persona non grata, accusing him of taking sides in the conflict. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary general, on Friday deemed the decision “contrary” to the principles of the United Nations and “not applicable”, noting that its status was “unchanged”.
