ABU DHABI: US President Donald Trump’s Africa envoy on Tuesday said neither of Sudan’s warring sides had accepted a new ceasefire proposal, urging both to agree to the plan presented by Washington on behalf of mediators without preconditions.
Renewed efforts for a truce come after Trump said last week he would move to help end the war in Sudan, after Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman urged him during a visit to Washington to get involved.
“We appeal to both sides to accept the humanitarian truce as presented without preconditions,” the US envoy Massad Boulos told reporters in the Emirati capital.
“We would like them to accept the specific text that was presented to them,” he added.
Boulos spoke at a joint media briefing with UAE presidential advisor Anwar Gargash in Abu Dhabi, days after Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan slammed the latest proposal presented by Boulos.
On Monday, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced a unilateral three-month ceasefire, a day after Burhan slammed the latest plan as the “worst yet”.
Atrocities in Sudan
The plan was presented by Washington on behalf of the Quad — which in addition to the US includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.
In recent weeks, reports of atrocities in Sudan have shocked the world after the RSF seized El-Fasher at the end of October, the last major city that remained outside of their control in the vast western region of Darfur.
Earlier Tuesday, rights group Amnesty International accused the RSF of committing war crimes in El-Fasher.
On November 6, the RSF announced it had agreed to a proposal for a humanitarian truce put forward by the Quad mediators.
The government had rejected an earlier plan in September, which excludes both the military and the RSF from Sudan’s post-war political process.
That proposal included a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule, AFP reported.
Mediation has so far failed to halt the fighting between the Sudani Army and the RSF, led by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, as both sides seek a military breakthrough.
