Sudan: peace talks in Switzerland despite RSF no-show
As Sudan enters month 16 of the civil war that has ravaged the country, Switzerland has tried to mediate with peace talks beginning on August 14th, despite the absence of the RSF military, reports Asharq Al-Awsat plus agencies.
Sudan is at “breaking point” warns UN officials, stating that there will be tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months if imminent steps are taken to alleviate the country’s humanitarian crisis.
The paramilitary RSF, which has seized broad swathes of the country, sent a delegation to the talks but direct mediation will be impossible without the army present, US special envoy Tom Perriello, who led the push for the talks, said this week.
Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the United Nations, the African Union, the East African body IGAD and other participants are instead consulting on roadmaps for a cessation of violence and carrying out humanitarian aid deliveries.
“Military operations will not stop without the withdrawal of every last militiaman from the cities and villages they have plundered and colonized,” Sudanese armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said late on August 13th.
The army has said its absence from the talks arises from the failure to implement previous US- and Saudi-brokered commitments to pull combatants out of civilian areas and facilitate aid deliveries.
“We are focused on ensuring parties comply with their Jeddah commitments and (their) implementation,” Perriello said on X on the 14th of August. The current talks will also focus on developing an enforcement mechanism for any deal.
Several areas of Sudan, including the cities of Omdurman, al-Obeid and al-Fashir are being destroyed, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians as the RSF continue their operations in the southwest.
READ: Internally displaced in Sudan conflict nears 10 million
With the rainy season in full swing, homes and shelters are being destroyed or waterlogged, threatening a wave of waterborne diseases.
In the last week, 268 cases of cholera were reported in Sudan, the health ministry said, on top of the thousands who suffer without food.
Aid deliveries into RSF-controlled areas have been severely delayed by the army-aligned government in Port Sudan, as well as by robberies and looting, often by RSF fighters, witnesses say.
The war erupted in April 2023 amid disputes over how to integrate the army and RSF as part of a transition from military rule to free elections. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis has ensued with half the 50 million population lacking food and famine taking hold in part of the North Darfur region.
READ: Child famine likely to hit war-torn Sudan soon, warns UN
Without ceasing violence, the already impoverished and devastated country will fall even further into destruction and crisis, risking the tens of thousands of those who still remain.
Asharq Al-Awsat/ Agencies.
