Egypt renewed its call for “an urgent and immediate humanitarian truce in Sudan” and stressed the need for “a comprehensive and complete ceasefire across all Sudanese territory.”
Egypt’s permanent representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ambassador Amr Ramadan, said on Friday that the situation in Sudan requires a responsible position that supports mechanisms trusted by the Sudanese people.
He also called for “strengthening national institutions as an essential and indispensable pillar for achieving justice and protecting human rights.”
The appeals come as fighting escalates in Sudan, particularly in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, where drones have been used by the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The scene recalls El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, which fell to the RSF last year after months of siege and the deaths of hundreds of people.
At the UN Human Rights Council meeting, Ramadan said: “The highest and most urgent priority today is to reach a real humanitarian truce that would pave the way for a comprehensive halt to military operations.”
He renewed Egypt’s call for “a comprehensive and complete ceasefire across all Sudanese territory” and urged “the launch of a purely Sudanese political process, without any external dictates or interference.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also called on Friday for greater light to be shed on how resources such as gold are being exploited to fuel the conflict.
Ambassador Salah Halima, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, said: “There is difficulty in advancing solutions to the Sudanese crisis.”
“We are still going in circles, between tracks calling for a humanitarian truce, a ceasefire, and the launch of political dialogue, without any of them being implemented,” he said.
Halima said the crisis requires understandings that the international quartet could adopt, describing it as the most capable and influential mechanism for reaching a settlement to the humanitarian crisis.
The quartet mechanism, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, is working to secure a ceasefire in Sudan.
It held a ministerial-level meeting in Washington last September and announced: “a roadmap that includes a timeline to end the crisis in Sudan, beginning with the implementation of a humanitarian truce as soon as possible.”
Halima said the tracks for resolving the Sudanese crisis “must be implemented in parallel,” covering the security, military, humanitarian and political dimensions, as well as reconstruction.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the start could be the launch of a political dialogue among Sudanese parties, which would issue a decision on a ceasefire,” saying this “could create pressure on the parties to the war.”
Makki al-Maghribi, director of the International Relations Unit at the Sudanese Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, said: “A humanitarian truce in Sudan remains difficult.”
He said any “real cessation of hostilities requires a commitment from the Rapid Support Forces militia in the areas it controls, which has not happened since the start of the war.”
Maghribi told Asharq Al-Awsat that “there is a new formulation of international mediation on Sudan ... through a quartet meeting held in Cairo that included Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Türkiye and the United States.”
“The position of most countries in the new mediation is always read in the context of preserving Sudan’s unity,” he said.
