US Eyes April 18 for Possible Resumption of Sudan Peace Talks

Displaced Sudanese in West Darfur (The AP/FILE)
Displaced Sudanese in West Darfur (The AP/FILE)
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US Eyes April 18 for Possible Resumption of Sudan Peace Talks

Displaced Sudanese in West Darfur (The AP/FILE)
Displaced Sudanese in West Darfur (The AP/FILE)

A US envoy voiced hope on Tuesday that Sudan’s warring generals will resume talks after Ramadan and work to prevent a broader regional war, despite the failure of previous negotiations.

Tom Perriello, a former congressman recently named to a new position of US special envoy for Sudan, said after a seven-nation trip that talks co-led with Saudi Arabia could start on or around April 18, according to AFP.

“Anyone who thought that either side had a path to outright victory should at this point be very clear that that’s not the case,” he told reporters after returning to Washington.

“A war of attrition,” he said, “is one that is not just a disaster for civilians, but actually easily becomes a more factionalised and regional war.”

War broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands, forcing millions to flee and pushing the impoverished country to the brink of famine.

Previous rounds of talks in the Saudi port city of Jeddah failed to yield any more than general promises or to halt the conflict in Sudan, which had earlier been transitioning, if uneasily, toward democracy.

Perriello, while upbeat about resuming formal negotiations, added that it was important not to “fetishise the start of talks” and said the United States and other nations were looking at incentives to end the war.

The Rapid Support Forces has also allegedly received support from Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, while regional countries supported the Sudanese Army.

The United States has previously voiced alarm over reports that Iran is also working with the army, which could give Tehran’s clerical state, which also backs Yemen’s Houthi rebels, new access to the Red Sea.

Darfur

In this regard, the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur revealed on Tuesday that over 561 children have died from food shortages and malnutrition in just 11 months of war. This translates to a devastating average of 17 child deaths daily.

The voluntary civil group also reported a rising death rate among children in the displacement camps, which include some 6 million people, saying they were “in urgent need of food.”

Adam Rijal, spokesperson for the displaced people’s coordination committee, told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday that the displacement camps have officially reached the emergency levels of hunger.

“Children are starving. We face severe food shortages, malnutrition, and a collapse of the healthcare system,” he said.

Basic necessities like fortified food for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the elderly are also critically lacking.

The spokesperson pointed to a critical shortage of life-saving medicines, adding that primary healthcare centres are shutting down due to a lack of personnel and supplies.

Additionally, 70% of the camps’ water sources are now inoperable, creating a severe water shortage, Rijal said.

He explained that the “newly displaced persons have no shelters, while the international and local communities have already ignored those displaced since 2003, estimated at about 3 million.”

Rijal said the number of internally displaced people in camps has reached 6 million, including over one million children who suffer from acute malnutrition.

Taqaddum

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Taqaddum) launched a campaign to garner international support and pressure warring parties to allow aid access under the slogan “Save Sudan.”

Their move came in response to the recommendations of a Taqaddum meeting held last week under the presidency of former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Hamdok had emphasized the urgency of international attention to the crisis in Sudan.

In a statement, Taqaddum said it has launched, in cooperation with Sudanese parties, a humanitarian campaign through its platform, as of Tuesday, with the hashtag #Save_Sudan.



Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.