2023-05-03 01:21:42
Fierce fighting continued in Sudan, hit by a humanitarian “catastrophe”, but neighboring South Sudan said on Tuesday it had an “agreement in principle” of the two warring generals for a week’s truce.
“Firefights, military planes and anti-aircraft shots are heard”an inhabitant of Khartoum informs AFP, when a previous truce, officially in force but violated from the beginning, ends on Wednesday at midnight.
The leaders of the army and paramilitary forces at war in Sudan agreed a seven-day truce from May 4 to May 11in a telephone interview with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, the South Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday.
“General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (…) and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo (…) agreed in principle to a seven-day truce from May 4 to 11,” the ministry announced in a statement.
They both “gave their agreement (…) to the appointment of representatives to carry out peace negotiations that must be carried out in the place they choose,” the statement said.
the truces
None of the previous truces was respected by the belligerents.
The fighting, which began on April 15, have caused more than 500 deaths, mainly in Khartoum and Darfur (west), and thousands of wounded, according to a widely underestimated balance.
The conflict plunged the country, one of the poorest in the world, into a “true catastrophe,” according to the UN.
More than 330,000 people were displaced and another 100,000 left for neighboring countries, according to the UN, which estimates there will be eight times as many refugees.
Those who remain suffer from a lack of water, electricity and food in Khartoum, one of the hottest cities in the world.
Sudan has been mired in conflict since April 15 when a war for power broke out between army chief General Abdel Fatah al Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FAR), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
A senior UN official in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, warned Monday that the situation was heading for a “full-blown catastrophe.”
Catastrophe
Kenyan President William Ruto said that the conflict reached “catastrophic levels” and that the warring generals refuse “to heed the calls of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union and the international community for a ceasefire.”
In a virtual meeting with senior UN officials, Ruto said it was imperative to find ways to send humanitarian aid “with or without a ceasefire.”
Burhan and Daglo, who are now rivals, they allied in a coup in 2021 to marginalize civilians from the government after the overthrow of dictator Omar al Bashir, which halted the transition in the country.
Both sides have broken several truces, the latest a 72-hour ceasefire agreed late on Sunday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the aid program for Sudan by 2023 is only 14% funded and that $1.5 billion missing to face the humanitarian crisis, aggravated by the fighting.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths arrived in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Monday on a mission to find ways to send aid to the millions of civilians trapped in Sudan.
The chaos of the conflict included the bombing of hospitals and looting of humanitarian facilities, forcing foreign organizations to suspend most of their operations.
UNHCR fears that “more than 800,000 people” flee from fighting to neighboring countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the fighting weighed down the country’s health system, which was already extremely fragile, pushing it towards a “catastrophe” and that in the capital only 16% of hospitals are operating at full capacity.
Chaos also struck the West Darfur state capital, Geneina, where at least 96 people They have been reported dead since the start of the fighting, according to the UN.
The Darfur region is still heavily scarred by the war that began in 2003 when dictator Al Bashir recruited “Janjaweed” militias against ethnic minority rebels.
This war, which included a scorched earth campaign, left nearly 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to UN figures.
Fuente: AFP
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