A three-day cease-fire to commemorate the conclusion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is being requested by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in order to give stranded civilians time to find shelter and supplies.
At the U.N. headquarters in New York, Guterres told reporters, “This must be the first step in giving respite from the violence and laying the groundwork for a durable cease-fire.”
He had just held a virtual meeting with the leaders of the African Union, Arab League, regional group IGAD, and other powerful nations. Nothing new was discovered during the session.
Since violence broke out last Saturday between the Army Commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Guterres has been on the phone trying to defuse the situation.
The U.N. head stated that when hostilities stop, there has to be serious discussion to enable a smooth transition, beginning with the formation of a civilian administration.
According to Guterres, it is “nearly difficult” for relief workers to carry out activities given the hostilities already in place, and he requested that combatants cease attacking civilians.
During the beginning of the war in Darfur, three World Food Program personnel were murdered in crossfire. Some have experienced intimidation and harassment. Moreover, reports of sexual attacks against assistance workers exist. Attacks, looting, and seizure have occurred in warehouses. In south Darfur’s Nyala, the WFP reported that 4,000 metric tonnes of food had been taken from one of their facilities.
Abdou Dieng, the acting U.N. humanitarian and resident coordinator for Sudan, told reporters by phone from the country: “There were no humanitarian services provided to Sudanese the last five days simply because it’s not possible for any humanitarian workers to move outside of their home location or their compound.”
But he cautioned that what is safe one day could not be safe the next, he said the U.N. is looking for a cease-fire to relocate workers from more risky regions to safer ones.
According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, more than 330 people have died and around 3,200 have been injured as a result of the violence.
The Sudanese healthcare system “may utterly collapse,” according to the U.N. Hospitals require additional personnel, supplies, and blood.
According to Sudan’s ministry of health, at least 20 hospitals have already shuttered. According to the United Nations, at least nine in the capital city of Khartoum are shut down, with the possibility that a dozen more may do so shortly.
According to officials, this is all devastating for a nation where almost 16 million people, or one-third of the population, need humanitarian aid prior to the most recent conflict.
According to the UNHCR, between 10,000 and 20,000 Sudanese have fled into the neighbouring Chad this week. According to Dieng of the U.N., his agency has also received reports of individuals coming in South Sudan and at the Ethiopia-Eritrea border region.
calls for conversation
After months of building tensions about the country’s political future and attempts to incorporate the RSF into the national army, violence between the army and RSF broke out.
African organisations including the African Union, the Arab League, and IGAD have all called for an end to the conflict.
The presidents of Kenya, South Sudan, and Djibouti have announced that they will visit Sudan in the upcoming days to meet with the authorities.
Yet, neither of Sudan’s two senior generals has indicated a desire to engage in negotiations, and each has demanded the other’s capitulation.
The fights are a result of a struggle for dominance between Burhan, who also serves as the deputy leader of Sudan’s ruling military council, and Dagalo, also known as Hemedti. In October 2021, the two generals banded together to topple the interim administration set up following the 2019 toppling of longstanding tyrant Omar al-Bashir.
In an effort to put an end to the political turmoil and return the nation to civilian administration, the military was reorganised.
