Rival military leaders are engaged in fierce fighting in Sudan that has claimed hundreds of lives so far. South Sudan mediated and negotiated a week-long ceasefire.
The leaders of the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to a seven-day ceasefire from May 4th to May 11th. This was announced by the Foreign Ministry of neighboring South Sudan. The President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, has been mediating between the two parties to the conflict for a few days as a representative of the Northeast African regional association IGAD.
Al-Burhan and Daglo have agreed to nominate representatives for negotiations to take place in South Sudan’s capital Juba. A date has yet to be set for the start of negotiations, South Sudan’s foreign ministry said. The rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation makes a de-escalation of the conflict imperative, it said.
At the end of last week, the Ministry of Health reported around 530 dead and a good 4,600 injured in the fighting. In the chaos of the battles, however, it is difficult for authorities to keep an overview. They assume that the true numbers are significantly higher.
At least 334,000 people have become internally displaced since fighting broke out in mid-April. This was reported by the UN Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva. Most of them, around 240,000 people, are displaced in the areas of south and west Darfur, an IOM spokesman said. Even before the conflict, there were 3.7 million displaced people in Sudan as a result of previous fighting.
The number of refugees seeking refuge in neighboring countries has passed 100,000, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Many would arrive in Chad, South Sudan and Egypt. Among them are the Sudanese, but also refugees from other countries who have found refuge in Sudan. The UNHCR’s plans are based on the fact that more than 800,000 people could flee if the fighting continues. “We hope it doesn’t come to that,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Even before the most recent violence, Sudan was already heavily dependent on international humanitarian aid. The UN appeal for donations for 2023 in the amount of 1.75 billion US dollars (around 1.6 billion euros) was only 14 percent covered by the beginning of May. The UN organizations urgently needed money to be able to provide aid, said a spokesman for the UN emergency relief office OCHA.
Six WHO containers that arrived in Port Sudan by ship were emptied on Tuesday and the material moved to warehouses, a WHO spokesman said in Geneva. The UN had already had a lot of aid material in Sudan before the conflict and not all camps had been looted, the OCHA spokesman said. The material will be distributed as soon as the security situation permits.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
