Jeddah Talks A Chance for Peace in Sudan?

Representatives from the RSF's Mohamed Hamdan Daglo and Army Chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan were dispatched to Jeddah.

Will Saudi Arabia Broker a Ceasefire in Sudan’s Deadly Conflict?

Representatives from the RSF's Mohamed Hamdan Daglo and Army Chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan were dispatched to Jeddah.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry stated the discussions "will continue in the coming days.
RIYADH: Sudanese are resting their hopes on negotiations between representatives of warring factions in Jeddah to put a stop to the carnage that has claimed hundreds of lives and sparked a huge exodus.

The US-Saudi proposal is the first significant attempt to stop the violence that has transformed portions of Khartoum into war zones, thwarted a plan supported by the international community to impose civilian authority after years of upheaval, and sparked a humanitarian disaster.

"Pre-negotiation" discussions started on Saturday, according to a statement from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, and "will continue in the coming days in the expectation of reaching an effective short-term cease-fire to facilitate humanitarian assistance."

The political coalition driving the effort to transition to a civilian administration in Sudan, the Forces of Freedom and Change, welcomed the Jeddah negotiations on Saturday.

There has been no indication of the status of the negotiations between the army and the opposing paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which started on Saturday.

The combatants have stated that they would only focus on humanitarian problems, such as safe passage, and not on putting an end to the fight. Since the fighting started on April 15, many cease-fires have been broken.

Tamader Ibrahim, a 35-year-old government employee in Bahri, located across the Blue Nile from Khartoum, said: "If the Jeddah negotiations fail to end the war, this would mean that we won't be able to return to our homes and our lives."

Because they are our only chance, we are awaiting these conversations.

Doctor Mahjoub Salah, 28, said the parts of the capital affected by violence changed daily.

Before renting a home for his family in the southeast of the capital, Salah witnessed intense violence and a neighbor being shot in the abdomen in his Al-Amarat neighborhood in downtown Khartoum.

Salah stated, "We're still waiting for our passports to be issued, but we're not sure how long this will take." Then, we're going to fly from Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia.

Since mid-April, fighting has resulted in hundreds of fatalities, tens of thousands of injuries, a breakdown in assistance deliveries, and the emigration of 100,000 refugees.

According to the RSF, a video showing troops from the Sudanese army who gave up was published. Shooting could be heard in the background as one of them began to talk.

Thousands of people are attempting to flee from Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia by using boats, flying commercially at exorbitant prices through Sudan's sole operational airport, or taking evacuation planes.

Sudan, which is strategically located between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and the tumultuous Sahel area, has seen conflicts before.

But the majority of them happened in outlying locations. The situation has become far more worrisome for Sudanese citizens this time around because of intensive fighting in Khartoum, one of Africa's largest cities.

The UN refugee agency has recorded more than 30,000 individuals crossing since the war started.

more than 90% of them are South Sudanese, entering South Sudan. It claims that the real figure is probably substantially higher. Aid organizations worry that the surge would make South Sudan's already severe humanitarian catastrophe worse.