KHARTOUM: Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire after intense negations brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia.
The agreement comes as Western, Arab and Asian nations struggled to pull out their citizens from the war-torn country.
The SAF confirmed that the US and Saudi Arabia mediated the ceasefire, starting at midnight local time.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that warring parties in Sudan had agreed to a 72-hour.
This is the third ceasefire announced since violence broke out earlier this month, but none have held.
Blinken said the agreement had been reached between the regular army and the paramilitary RSF after 48 hours of intense negotiations. The RSF and the army independently announced the ceasefire.
According to the BBC, around 400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since fighting erupted on April 15.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the violence in the country risks causing a “catastrophic conflagration” which could engulf the whole region and beyond.
Since the violence began, the battle-scarred capital Khartoum residents had been told to stay inside, and food and water supplies had been running low.
The bombing from both sides has hit key infrastructure, like water pipes, forcing some people to drink from the River Nile.
Hopefully, the ceasefire will allow civilians to leave the capital city. Foreign governments also hope the truce will allow for continued evacuations out of the country.
Countries including the US have scrambled to evacuate their diplomats and citizens as fighting raged in the capital and surrounding areas.
Earlier, Blinken said that some convoys attempting to move people out of the capital city faced “robbery and looting”.
The US, he said, was looking at possibly resuming its diplomatic presence in Sudan, but he said the conditions there as “very challenging”.
Monitoring group NetBlocks said that Sudan suffered an “internet blackout” with connectivity at 2 per cent of ordinary levels. In Khartoum, the internet had been down since Sunday night.
Tens of thousands of people, including Sudanese citizens have fled the country because of the fighting.
Hassan Ibrahim, 91, a retired physician who lived near the main airport in Khartoum, where some of the worst fighting had occurred, opted for the difficult journey with his family into neighbouring Egypt.
He told the BBC that they had escaped being caught up in a firefight between RSF fighters and the Sudani army but that a van behind them had been hit. His family then boarded a bus to the border, which took 12 hours, only to be met by “crowded and chaotic” scenes as people waited to be permitted to enter the neighbouring country.
