Agence France-Presse :
A new truce between the army and the Rapid Support Forces entered into force on Saturday morning in Sudan.
as residents kept their hopes low after the two sides broke all previous agreements and did not allow them a chance to catch a breath in a conflict approaching its third month.
Since the start of the fighting on April 15 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the two sides concluded more than one cease-fire agreement, which was soon violated.
The truce officially entered into force at 6:00 am (04:00 GMT), and it will last for 24 hours only.
Khartoum residents told AFP early Saturday that the situation on the ground was calm, which is often the case at this time.
“A one-day truce is less than our ambition. We look forward to a comprehensive end to this damned war,” said Mahmoud Bashir, who lives in the northern suburb of Bahri.
For his part, Issam Muhammad Omar, who was displaced from his home in central Khartoum to the suburb of Omdurman, said, “A truce that does not drive the RSF out of our house, which they expelled us from three weeks ago, does not mean anything to me.”
As with previous agreements, the new truce mainly aims to secure access to humanitarian aid to the estimated 45 million people, more than half of whom need aid in a country that was already one of the poorest in the world before the current conflict.
Observers doubted that this truce would be better than the previous ones, especially since the circumstances of the conflict have not changed.
“Unfortunately, the incentives have not changed for either side, so it is difficult to imagine that a truce based on the same basic pillars, especially for this short period, will have a radically different outcome,” Ali Verji, a professor at the Swedish University of Gothenburg, told AFP.
“However, some reduction in the level of violence would be welcome by those living under bullets,” he added.
The conflict has claimed more than 1,800 lives, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). However, the actual number of victims may be much higher, according to aid agencies and international organizations.
According to the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, the conflict has caused the displacement of about two million people, including more than 476,000 who have crossed into neighboring countries.
The announcement of the new truce came in a joint Saudi-American statement, in which the two parties, which have been leading mediation between the belligerents for weeks, expressed their disappointment at the failure of all attempts at truce.
And the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday that Riyadh and Washington “share with the Sudanese people the state of frustration over non-compliance with the previous truces, and therefore this truce was proposed to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid, break the state of violence and contribute to strengthening confidence-building measures between the two parties, which allows the resumption of the Jeddah talks.”
Last week, the two mediators announced the suspension of the talks after the army’s decision to withdraw from them. However, they urged the two parties to the conflict to conclude a new agreement, and confirmed that the representatives of the two sides would remain in Jeddah, despite the suspension of direct negotiations.
And they warned that “in the event that the two parties do not adhere to this armistice, the two leaders will be forced to postpone the Jeddah talks.”
Fergie believed that Riyadh and Washington, despite the failure of their attempts and the absence of any horizon for a solution, continue to seek calm, “because the task of the mediator is to continue trying even when things seem bleak.”
– Renewed confidence in the UN envoy –
Khartoum, which was inhabited by more than five million people before the start of the fighting, in addition to other cities, suffers from food shortages, electricity outages, and a decline in basic services.
The truce comes a day after the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, renewed his confidence in his German envoy, Volker Peretz, after the Sudanese government considered him persona non grata.
The spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, considered that Khartoum’s action “contradicts” the principles of the United Nations and “cannot be applied,” stressing that Peretz’s characterization “has not changed at present, and the position of the Secretary-General remains as he expressed it before the Security Council last week,” in reference to the confidence that he has. expressed about it.
On Thursday, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry confirmed that the government had notified the Secretary-General of declaring Peretz “persona non grata”, after the organization refused to respond to Al-Burhan’s request to replace Peretz after he was accused of fueling the conflict.
In early June, the UN Security Council extended, for a period of six months, the mission of the United Nations Integrated Transitional Support Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), led by Peretz.
The mission was established in June 2020 to support the democratic transition in Sudan after the overthrow of the regime of former President Omar al-Bashir. It extended its mandate annually for one year.
Humanitarian organizations repeatedly warn of the seriousness of the humanitarian situation in Sudan, especially in Khartoum and the Darfur region (west), where the battles are most intense.
According to medical sources, three quarters of the hospitals in combat zones are out of service. It is feared that the crisis will worsen with the approach of the rainy season, which threatens the spread of malaria again, food insecurity and child malnutrition.
The outgoing head of the Red Cross mission, Alfonso Ferdo Perez, warned that the health situation is “possible to collapse at any time,” especially in Khartoum and the Darfur region (west), which has witnessed a bloody conflict for two decades.