US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken announced on Monday April 24 that the army and paramilitaries in conflict in Sudan had agreed to a three-day ceasefire, after ten days of deadly fighting.
“After intense negotiations over the past 48 hours, the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to implement a nationwide ceasefire beginning at midnight on April 24, lasting 72 hours,” Antony Blinken said in a statement. The FSR confirms and announces in a press release a “dedicated truce to the opening of humanitarian corridors and the facilitation of the movement of civilians”. The army has so far not communicated anything on this subject.
Khaled Omar Youssef, spokesman for the Forces of Freedom and Change (FLC, Sudan’s historic civil bloc) told Agence France Presse that he welcomed “American mediation, for the establishment of this truce humanitarian”. “It will lead to a dialogue on the terms of a definitive ceasefire,” he said, while the US Secretary of State also indicated that working with US allies and partners in for the establishment of a “commission” to negotiate a permanent cessation of hostilities in Sudan.
The UN had earlier on Monday called for an end to the fighting to “steer Sudan away from the precipice”. And if for several days, the two belligerents had already announced that they would accept breaks in the fighting, each time they accused each other of having broken the truce. This time, “during this period, the United States expects the military and the RSF to fully and immediately respect this ceasefire”, warned Antony Blinken.
Explosions, air raids and shootings have not stopped since April 15 in Khartoum, pushing thousands of residents from the capital plunged into chaos to exodus. Those who cannot flee try to survive, deprived of water and electricity, subject to food shortages and internet and telephone cuts. The fighting has already left more than 420 dead and 3,700 injured, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The violence in this East African country, one of the poorest in the world, risks “invading the whole region and beyond”, warned the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. Despite the departure of many diplomats and foreign citizens, Volker Perthes, the head of the UN mission which has been trying for four years to obtain from the military in power a transition to democracy, announced that he would remain in Sudan.
Foreign capitals have managed to negotiate passages with the two belligerents: the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, de facto ruler of Sudan, and his deputy who became his rival, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who commands the paramilitaries of the rapid support (FSR).
More than 1,000 EU nationals were evacuated. “A first group” of Chinese, several dozen South Africans and hundreds of nationals of Arab countries also left, by road, sea or air. About 700 international staff from the UN, NGOs and embassies “have been evacuated to Port Sudan”, the UN said. Dozens of other aid workers were evacuated to Chad from western Darfur, the region hardest hit by fighting with Khartoum.
Most of the evacuated foreigners are diplomatic personnel, such as those from the United States and the United Kingdom. Many nationals are still waiting for a place in the long convoys of white cars or buses that leave continuously from Khartoum.
Experts and humanitarians are now worried about the fate of the Sudanese. “I fear for their future,” Norwegian Ambassador Endre Stiansen admitted. Both sides accuse each other of attacking prisons to get hundreds of detainees out and of looting homes and factories. Clashes erupted near several banks. In a country where inflation is already in three digits in normal times, the kilo of rice or the liter of gasoline are now traded at gold prices.
But fuel is the key to escape to Egypt, 1,000 kilometers to the north, or to reach Port-Sudan and hope to get on a boat. “As foreigners who can flee, the impact of the violence on an already critical humanitarian situation is worsening,” warns the UN, whose agencies, like many humanitarian organizations, have suspended their activities.
Five aid workers have been killed and, according to the doctors’ union, nearly three-quarters of hospitals are out of service. Sudanese have already fled to Egypt and South Sudan, which has 800,000 Sudanese refugees. Earlier Monday Washington expressed “very serious concerns” over the presence in Sudan of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which it said is bringing “where it is present its share of additional death and destruction”.
