On Sunday, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organization in East Africa that has been facilitating talks between the warring factions in Sudan, proclaimed that the rival groups who have been involved in violent clashes since mid-April have now reached an agreement to halt the fighting and implement a ceasefire.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) reported that General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) agreed to a personal meeting with General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti and the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group.
The decision was reached at a summit in Djibouti on Saturday, Alexis Mohammed, adviser to Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh, said in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter).
The leader of Djibouti, who was hosting the summit as the current chairman of IGAD, had a phone conversation with the leader of RSF, Hemedti, who agreed to the proposal for a ceasefire and a meeting with General Burhan, acording to Mohammed.
The conflicting sides in the Sudanese crisis “also accepted the principle of meeting within 15 days in order to pave the way for a series of confidence-building measures between the two parties that lead to the launch of a political process,” he added.
Fighting between the SAF and RSF, which has been ongoing for nearly eight monts, has killed more than 12,000 people, with an estimated 6.6 million fleeing their homes, the UN said last week.
According to a statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Sudan has been identified as the nation with the highest count of displaced individuals and the most severe crisis of child displacement worldwide, with a staggering 1,300 deaths occurring solely between October 28 and November 24.
The fighting which erupted in the capital, Khartoum, has taken on an ethnic dimension, triggering waves of killings in the West Darfur region.
The UN has repeatedly accused paramilitary forces of killing hundreds of ethnic Masalits and burying some in mass graves in West Darfur. On Thursday, the OCHA reported that that the RSF had detained hundreds of people, including 80 children, in Ardamata, a town near the Sudanese army base in West Darfur.
The US determined on Friday that war crimes had been committed by both parties involved in the conflict
The RSF has denied all allegations, including ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The army has also denied committing war crimes.
Both factions have accused each other of killing civilians and violating previous humanitarian ceasefires.
At talks in Djibouti on Saturday, army chief Burhan accused the RSF of “barbaric attacks,” but said the army was open to finding a peaceful solution.
The Regional Sudanese Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese people have been forced into conflict by the former regime and its allies within the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), according to a statement made by General Hemedti on Monday. In response, an emergency summit will be held by the African bloc to address the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
He added, however, that the RSF accepts the outcomes of the IGAD summit and is willing to cooperate with the regional bloc and the international community to end the conflict and address the root causes of “Sudan’s wars and establish a new democratic state.”
In 2019, the Sudanese military and a paramilitary group joined forces to overthrow President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in pwoer for 30 years. However, the two groups are now in conflict over a proposal to combine their troops as part of Sudan’s transition from military to civilian leadership.
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