After nearly a week of talks, Sudan’s warring parties, the country’s army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have signed a deal to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population, but have made little progress towards peace.
This is a first step to providing relief for trapped civilians.
They agreed to allow safe passage for people leaving battle zones, protect relief workers and not to use civilians as human shields.
However, they did not agree to pause the fighting.
There are reports of more air strikes and shelling in the capital, Khartoum on Friday.
The talks have been mediated by the US and Saudi Arabia, the host country.
US officials said they were cautiously hopeful there was momentum now for the safe delivery of relief supplies, as both sides committed to let in badly needed humanitarian assistance after looting and attacks that targeted aid.
However, the conflicting parties are still quite far apart when it comes to brokering peace, the US said.
They are still discussing a proposal for a truce and a mechanism to monitor it.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian government has disclosed that a total number of 2,246 stranded Nigerians had so far been evacuated to the country from war-ravaged Sudan.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman, Manzo Ezikiel, on Thursday said in a statement, that the agency had dispatched assorted food items to the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan to cater for stranded Nigerians waiting to be evacuated to Nigeria from Sudan.
Mustapha Ahmed, the Director-General of NEMA, explained that the food items were meant to cater for the Nigerian citizens who are awaiting evacuation.
The items consisted of 100 bags of rice, 50 bags of beans, 10 cartons of seasoning, 50 cartons of spaghetti and 5 bags of iodized salt.
He said that the items had since been transported to Port Sudan via a TARCO aircraft which brought 123 stranded Nigerians to Abuja at about 12:25 p.m.
According to him the evacuation exercise is still in progress as efforts are being made to engage more Nigerian airlines to strengthen the process of transporting more Nigerians willing to come back home.
Aspects of the crisis
Sudan is the new front of the new type of preventive proxy war. Unfortunately, Sudan has been driven into a civil war by domestic factions. Since April 15, more than 500 people have lost their lives. In addition, thousands were injured during the fight between the Sudanese Army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Sudan’s paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (popularly known as Hemedti).
Regional and global powers can easily manipulate many dimensions of the complex Sudanese crisis for different reasons. In other words, the related external forces have been trying to intervene in the conflict to realize their expectations. While some states exploit the golden resources, others have expectations over the flow of the Nile River.
Many regional and global powers, such as the U.S., Russia, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, play influential roles in Sudanese politics, and they exploit the already vulnerable situation in the country. As a result, these states influence the expansion and deepening of the crisis since they maintain contact with the conflicting parties in the country. In addition, some states used proxy non-state actors during the crisis. For example, Russia’s Wagner private military company and the UAE’s Khaftar play influential roles.
Sudan’s ongoing military crisis has a humanitarian dimension. The civil unrest will cause a large-scale humanitarian crisis. So far, hundreds of people have lost their lives. If the fight continues, thousands of innocent people may lose their lives. Another important humanitarian dimension of the conflict is the food insecurity and poverty in the country. Sudan, an already poor country that cannot provide food for its population, may face a deep food crisis due to the fight.
A third dimension of the humanitarian crisis is the refugee problem, which has both humanitarian and security dimensions. About 20,000 Sudanese have already arrived in Chad and Ethiopia, and the limited food cannot reach all refugees. Moreover, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), if the violence does not stop, millions of Sudanese may flee the country.
The crisis has a security dimension, influencing regional countries such as the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Chad, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Sudanese crisis may trigger new situations in the neighboring countries. At a minimum, the refugee problem can shake the domestic balance in these states. The economies of the neighboring countries may suffer due to the refugee waves. As the fight continues, weapons and human trafficking will increase regional volatility.
Source: BBC, Daily Sabah and NAN
Sponsored
