After ten days of urban fighting that claimed hundreds of lives, injured thousands, and caused a large-scale evacuation of foreigners, a 72-hour ceasefire between Sudan’s warring generals went into force on Tuesday.
Shortly before the cease-fire went into effect at midnight (22:00:00 GMT Monday), Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had agreed to the cease-fire “following intense negotiations.”
Previous attempts to cease the fighting fell short, but the three-day truce was acknowledged by both parties.
“This ceasefire aims to establish humanitarian corridors, allowing citizens and residents to access essential resources, healthcare, and safe zones, while also evacuating diplomatic missions,” the RSF paramilitary tweeted.
The SAF declared on Facebook that it would uphold the truce only if its adversaries did the same.
Sudan was on “the edge of an abyss,” according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the bloodshed “could engulf the entire region and beyond.”
Armed forces loyal to army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and those of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who is in charge of the RSF, have been engaged in combat.
Former president Omar al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia in Darfur, which gave rise to the RSF and the war crimes accusations levelled against Bashir and others.
The main civilian coalition that the two generals overthrew in a coup in 2021, the Forces of Freedom and Change, stated that the ceasefire would allow for “dialogue on the modalities of a permanent ceasefire.”
According to UN organisations, at least 427 people have died and more than 3 700 have been injured.
According to Egypt’s foreign ministry, the assistant administrative attache at Cairo’s embassy in Khartoum was one of the most recent victims.
‘Corpses litter the streets’
According to the report, the diplomat was slain as he travelled from his house to the embassy to monitor the evacuation process.
Over 4,000 people have left the nation in evacuations planned by foreign governments that started on Saturday.
Emergency missions were launched by the United States, European, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian governments to transport their embassy staff and nationals living in Sudan to safety by land, air, and sea.
However, millions of Sudanese are unable to leave one of the most impoverished nations in the world with a history of military coups.
They are attempting to withstand severe shortages of water, food, medicine, and fuel in addition to blackouts of the power and internet.
According to UN agencies, some civilians from Sudan were able to flee “to Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan.”
Guterres said:
“We must all do everything within our power to pull Sudan back from the edge of the abyss”.
He had once more requested a cease-fire.
An emergency UN Security Council meeting on Sudan was called by Britain, and it was scheduled to happen on Tuesday, a diplomat said.
‘Unspeakable destruction’
700 UN personnel made the hard 850-kilometer drive from the capital to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, leaving behind gunfire and explosions.
Volker Perthes, the leader of the UN mission, reported that the convoy landed without incident. He and other important personnel will “remain in Sudan and will continue to work towards a resolution to the current crisis,” according to a separate UN statement.
Many foreigners were flown from smaller airstrips to nations like Djibouti and Jordan after Khartoum airport was shut down following conflicts that left burnt aircraft on the runway.
On Sunday, British special troops and US special forces used Chinook helicopters to swoop in and rescue diplomats and their dependents.
Josep Borrell, the head of the EU’s foreign policy, claimed that over 1000 EU people had been evacuated during a “long and intense weekend” that included airlift missions by France, Germany, and other countries.
A first batch of citizens had been “safely evacuated,” and China declared it will “use all necessary measures to protect the lives, property, and safety of more than 1,500 Chinese compatriots in Sudan.”
In addition to temporarily closing its embassy in Khartoum, Japan claimed to have evacuated 45 of its citizens and their wives.
The capital, a city of five million, has endured “more than a week of unspeakable destruction”, Norway’s ambassador Endre Stiansen wrote on Twitter after his evacuation.
‘Nowhere is safe’
Nearly 200 people from more than 20 countries arrived in the Saudi port of Jeddah Monday night after crossing the Red Sea in a naval frigate.
“We travelled a long way from Khartoum to Port Sudan. It took us around 10 or 11 hours,” Lebanese national Suhaib Aicha told AFP as his young daughter cried on his shoulders.
“It took us another 20 hours on this ship from Port Sudan to Jeddah.”
Those Sudanese who can afford to do so are also escaping Khartoum on crammed buses for the more than 900-kilometer trek through the desert to Egypt.
According to the UN refugee agency, some of the 800 000 South Sudanese refugees who earlier escaped civil violence in their own country are opting to return, with women and children crossing the border.
In the capital, smoke from shelled buildings and burned shops has frequently turned the sky black due to street fights.
The architect resident Tagreed Abdin remarked, “There was a rocket strike in our neighbourhood… it is like nowhere is safe.”
Experts have long connected the RSF to the Wagner mercenary group in Russia. Blinken expressed “deep concern” early on Monday that Wagner would make the war in Sudan worse.
In April 2019, the military overthrew Bashir in response to widespread public demonstrations that sparked expectations for a democratic transition.
Following the coup in 2021, the two generals split apart, most notably over the RSF’s intended absorption into the regular army.
