Air strikes rock Sudan as truce talks yield no breakthrough

Published May 9, 2023
Goungour (Chad): Sudanese refugees who fled the violence in Darfur region ride their donkeys, looking for space to temporarily settle near the border between Sudan and Chad.—Reuters
Goungour (Chad): Sudanese refugees who fled the violence in Darfur region ride their donkeys, looking for space to temporarily settle near the border between Sudan and Chad.—Reuters

KHARTOUM: Air strikes 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 Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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 United States.

Washington and Riyadh have labelled these “pre-negotiation talks”.

By Monday, the discussions had yielded “no major progress”, a Saudi diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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

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, a city of five million, terrified residents reported more combat, now in its fourth week, as they tried to cope with power outages and sweltering heat.

A southern Khartoum resident said the family could hear “the sound of airstrikes which appeared to come from near a market in central Khartoum”.

----’Dangerous everywhere’----

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 in the capital and in other parts of the country have killed more than 750 people and injured over 5,000, 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 United Nations said.

It has warned of a widening humanitarian crisis. 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 as well as elsewhere, according to the UN.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2023

Opinion

Editorial

Smog hazard
Updated 05 Nov, 2024

Smog hazard

The catastrophe unfolding in Lahore is a product of authorities’ repeated failure to recognise environmental impact of rapid urbanisation.
Monetary policy
05 Nov, 2024

Monetary policy

IN an aggressive move, the State Bank on Monday reduced its key policy rate by a hefty 250bps to 15pc. This is the...
Cultural power
05 Nov, 2024

Cultural power

AS vital modes of communication, art and culture have the power to overcome social and international barriers....
Disregarding CCI
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Disregarding CCI

The failure to regularly convene CCI meetings means that the process of democratic decision-making is falling apart.
Defeating TB
04 Nov, 2024

Defeating TB

CONSIDERING the fact that Pakistan has the fifth highest burden of tuberculosis in the world as per the World Health...
Ceasefire charade
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Ceasefire charade

The US talks of peace, while simultaneously arming and funding their Israeli allies, are doomed to fail, and are little more than a charade.