The top UN aid official, Martin Griffiths, has now left Jeddah after he “proposed a declaration of commitments for the two parties to guarantee the safe passage of humanitarian relief”, a UN spokesman in New York said.
Analysts see a protracted fight between the generals, with the potential for broader conflict.
“As the war drags on … there is a growing risk that people might start arming themselves locally, or the army might resort to raising a counter-militia to the RSF, or both,” Magdi el-Gizouli of the Rift Valley Institute told AFP.
Even before this war, Sudan suffered localised conflicts that last year killed about 900 people, according to the UN
Those conflicts are often over access to scarce water and other resources, but they also reflected a security breakdown since Burhan and Daglo staged a coup in October 2021, derailing a transition to democracy after the toppling of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
The two generals later fell out in a power struggle, leading to the current fighting.
“CHALLENGE” TO NEIGHBOURS
State media reported on Tuesday deadly clashes in Kosti, the White Nile state capital and last major town on the road from Khartoum leading to South Sudan.
The fighting on Sunday between the Hausa and Nuba ethnic groups killed 16 people, wounded scores more and prompted a regional night-time curfew, state-run SUNA news agency said.
The UN has described Sudan’s humanitarian situation as catastrophic.
Aid facilities have faced “large-scale looting”, including most recently at the World Food Programme in Khartoum over the weekend, a UN spokesperson said on Monday.
“Certain banks in Khartoum” have also been looted, Sudan’s banking federation said on Tuesday, assuring Sudanese that their savings remain unaffected.
As representatives in Saudi Arabia seemed no closer to an agreement, “various types of weapons were fired” in northern Khartoum on Tuesday, according to a resident of the Shambat area.
Another witness reported continued clashes in the capital’s south.
The Sudanese foreign ministry said army chief Burhan had received calls on Tuesday from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azali Assoumani of the Comoros, the current chairman of the African Union.
According to the ministry’s statement, Assoumani “will send a special envoy to Jeddah to help reach an agreement to end the crisis and restore stability in Sudan”.
The African Union – which suspended Sudan following the 2021 coup – and East African regional bloc IGAD have pushed for discussions mediated by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir.
Concerns have grown over the conflict’s impact on South Sudan, whose oil is exported through its northern neighbour.
Hanna Tetteh, United Nations’ special envoy for the Horn of Africa, told the Security Council that more than 200,000 South Sudanese refugees hosted by Sudan could potentially return south, “if we do not see stability returning soon”.
Source: CNA
