This agreement, negotiated with US-Saudi mediation, provides for “safe passages” that allow civilians to leave areas of clashes, as well as to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Khartoum witnessed air raids, street fighting and explosions on Saturday, while millions of its residents are still waiting for the implementation of the commitment of the warring parties regarding the evacuation of civilians from combat zones and the provision of safe passages for the transport of humanitarian aid.
The delegates of the army commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed “Hamidati”, signed on Thursday night in Jeddah a “declaration for the protection of civilians in Sudan.”
This agreement, which was negotiated with US-Saudi mediation, provides for “safe passages” that allow civilians to leave areas of clashes, as well as to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The agreement did not refer to a truce, but it spoke of further consultations to reach a temporary cease-fire, and later “extended discussions for a permanent cessation of hostilities,” which, since its outbreak a month ago, have left more than 750 dead and nearly five thousand wounded, and led to the displacement of 900,000 Sudanese from their homes to other regions within the country or to neighboring countries.
Negotiations on the implementation of this agreement are scheduled to continue during the weekend in Jeddah, according to what a senior Saudi official confirmed to AFP. The official described this announcement as an “important step,” noting at the same time that the negotiation process is still in a “preliminary” stage.
For his part, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, estimated via Twitter that the talks are “a positive step towards restoring peace.”
An invitation to the Arab summit
“The initial agreements are always minimal,” Ali Verji, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg, told AFP. This specialist in Sudan confirmed that the two sides and the Saudi and American mediators “do not want to criticize the process they started for fear that this will lead to its failure.”
Despite this, the RSF confirmed on Friday that “in view of past experiences,” the army “has no interest in alleviating people’s suffering.”
In Khartoum, residents reported increasingly violent air strikes. They told AFP that “the walls of the houses were shaking” often, while artillery shelling was still going on in some neighbourhoods.
Since the war broke out four weeks ago, on the 15th of April, millions of Sudanese in Khartoum have been living indoors in suffocating heat, with almost permanent cuts of water and electricity, and suffering from food, money and fuel shortages.
Outside the capital, the Darfur region, located on the border with Chad, is witnessing violent clashes that, according to the United Nations, have killed 450 people so far. The region has previously witnessed a devastating war that claimed 300,000 lives and led to the displacement of 2.5 million people at the beginning of the current century.
The two warring parties participate in these battles, in addition to fighters belonging to rival tribes and armed civilians.
“bullet sound”
Thousands of people cross the border into Egypt every day, mainly. Tens of thousands have arrived in Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia, countries for which UNHCR had received “no more than 15 percent” of the money it needed to work before the war.
On Saturday, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community, especially the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), to provide “humanitarian aid” in the face of the “bad humanitarian situation.”
The statement said that the Sudanese government “undertook” to allocate “the airports of Port Sudan (east), Dongola (north) and Wadi Sayedna al-Askari (east) to receive aid.”
For his part, the senior Saudi official confirmed that Al-Burhan was invited to attend the Arab summit in Riyadh on May 19, but he made it clear that he did not yet know who would represent Sudan.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his hope that this agreement would lead to “the start of relief operations quickly and safely.” He again called for an immediate ceasefire and “talks for a permanent cessation of hostilities”.
On the Egyptian-Sudanese border, Wahaj Jaafar, who left his country to seek refuge in Egypt, said, “We constantly hear about a truce within days, but when we go out to the streets, we only hear the sound of bullets.”
