US says Sudan warring factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire

US says Sudan warring factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire

 

The United States said on Monday that the warring factions in Sudan had agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire.

The truce is coming as Nigeria, Western, Arab and Asian nations raced to evacuate their citizens from the country.

The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said the deal followed two days of intense negotiations and would begin on Tuesday.

But there are doubts about the two sides honouring the agreement as they did not abide by several previous temporary truce deals.

The Nigerian government has promised to start evacuating Nigerians mostly students stranded in that country from Tuesday.

Air Peace has also volunteered to airlift the Nigerians provided they are moved to a neighbouring country.

Fighting erupted between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 and has killed at least 427 people, knocked out hospitals and other services, and turned residential areas into war zones.

“During this period, the United States urges the SAF and RSF to immediately and fully uphold the ceasefire,” Blinken said in a statement.

He said the U.S. would coordinate with regional, international and Sudanese civilian interests to create a committee that would oversee work on a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements.

The RSF confirmed in Khartoum that it had agreed to the ceasefire, starting at midnight, to facilitate humanitarian efforts.

“We affirm our commitment to a complete ceasefire during the truce period”, the RSF said.

The SAF did not immediately comment on the announcement.

A coalition of Sudanese civil society groups that had been part of negotiations on a transition to democracy welcomed the news.

Ahead of the evening truce announcement, air strikes and ground fighting shook Omdurman, one of three adjacent cities in the capital region, and there were also clashes in capital Khartoum, a Reuters reporter said.

Dark smoke enveloped the sky near the international airport in central Khartoum, adjacent to army headquarters, and booms of artillery fire rattled the surroundings.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the violence in a country that flanks the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Sahel regions “risks a catastrophic conflagration … that could engulf the whole region and beyond”.

Tens of thousands of people, including Sudanese and citizens from neighbouring countries, have fled in the past few days, including to Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, despite instability and difficult living conditions there.

Foreign governments have been working to bring their nationals to safety. One 65-vehicle convoy took dozens of children, along with hundreds of diplomats and aid workers, on an 800-km (500-mile), 35-hour journey in searing heat from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

For those remaining in Africa’s third-largest country, where a third of its 46 million people needed aid even before the violence, the situation was increasingly bleak.

There were acute shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel and limited communications and electricity, with prices skyrocketing, said deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq.

-With Reuters reports