UN admits diplomatic 'failure' as fighting continues in Sudan
Gunfire and explosions could be heard in Khartoum for a 20th straight day on Thursday after the latest ceasefire expired on Wednesday. Earlier, UN chief Antonio Guterres acknowledged the international community had "failed" Sudan. The UN refugee agency also reiterated calls for donors to help support the thousands of civilians who have fled the conflict.
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The regular army said it was ready to abide by a new seven-day truce agreed with South Sudanese mediators, but there was no word from its rivals in the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
In Khartoum, witnesses reported loud explosions and exchanges of fire on the streets around dawn.
Deadly urban combat broke out on 15 April between Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who commands the regular army, and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the RSF.
According to figures from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, the fighting has killed some 700 people, most of them in Khartoum and Darfur.
"The UN was taken by surprise" by the conflict, because the world body and others were hopeful that negotiations towards a civilian transition would be successful, the UN chief told reporters in Nairobi Wednesday.
"To the extent that we and many others were not expecting this to happen, we can say we failed to avoid it to happen," Guterres said.
"A country like Sudan, that has suffered so much ... cannot afford a struggle for power between two people."
On the day that fighting broke out, the two generals, who were behind the 2021 coup, had been due to meet with international mediators to discuss the RSF's integration into the regular army. This being a key condition for the transition to democratic rule.
Food supplies looted
The UN's top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, made a lightning visit to Sudan Tuesday to try to negotiate safe passage for aid and aid workers after six trucks laden with food supplies from the World Food Programme were looted on their way to the war-torn western region of Darfur.
He was due to fly on to Nairobi Thursday after a brief stop in Saudi Arabia, his spokeswoman said.
Darfur is still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003 when then president Omar al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, against ethnic minority rebels.
The UN said Darfur civilians were again being armed in the latest fighting.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said violence in the West Darfur state capital, El Geneina, has "resulted in the loss of at least 191 lives".
"Dozens of settlements have been burnt and destroyed, and thousands have been displaced," the rights group said.
African solution
Both Griffiths and the UN's Sudan envoy, Volker Perthes, spoke to Burhan and Daglo over the telephone about the necessity of aid reaching people, Griffiths tweeted.
Mediation efforts have multiplied since the conflict broke out, but the regular army said Wednesday that it favoured those of the East African regional bloc IGAD, because it wanted "African solutions to the continent's issues".
It said it was also considering a Saudi-US bid to halt the fighting.
Arab League foreign ministers are to meet on Sunday to discuss the conflict ahead of an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia later this month, a diplomat told AFP.
Nearly 450,000 civilians have fled their homes since fighting began, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said, including more than 115,000 who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
The UN refugee agency said it is planning for an outflow of 860,000 people and announced that $445 million (€402 million) would be needed to support them just through October.
The agency said 47,000 Sudanese and 3,500 foreigners had crossed into Egypt as of Wednesday while others had gone to Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
(with AFP)
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