Saudi Arabia, US urge Sudan parties to resume truce talks
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Representatives of Sudan's regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are still in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah despite the earlier collapse of ceasefire talks.
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A Sudanese refugee who is seeking refuge in Chad for a second time waits with other refugees to receive a food portion on May 9, 2023. (Reuters)
Sudan's warring generals are urged by Saudi Arabia and the US to resume talks as fighting enters its eighth week. Meanwhile, Representatives of Sudan's regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are still in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah despite the earlier collapse of ceasefire talks, as per the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
A five-day extension of a fragile US- and Saudi-brokered truce technically expired Saturday evening amid mounting fear that violence will escalate.
The Saudi and US mediators nonetheless urged "the parties to agree to and effectively implement a new ceasefire, with the aim of building to a permanent cessation of hostilities," Riyadh said.
The latest truce was established to provide much-needed humanitarian relief and safe access to fighting-ravaged parts of Sudan, but it was frequently violated by both sides.
The Sudanese army on Wednesday withdrew from the talks in Jeddah.
Read more: 180 dead from Sudan fighting buried unidentified: Red Crescent
The negotiations were formally suspended a day later by the US-Saudi mediators, who stated that they were prepared to continue them as soon as the sides were "serious" about the truce.
The announcement on Sunday comes two days before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to land in Saudi Arabia to tackle the crisis in Sudan.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more than 1,800 people have died in the fighting over the course of more than seven weeks.
The UN reported that over 425,000 people have fled to neighboring countries while 1.2 million people have been displaced within Sudan.
Meanwhile, more than half of the population of Sudan, which was already one of the poorest nations in the world before the conflict, needs assistance and safety.
Read more: Sudan: A borderless conflict
