By Noha Elhennawy, CAIRO Egypt
The death toll from the ongoing clashes in Sudan has risen to 604 people, including civilians, the U.N. health agency said on Tuesday. The new figures come as representatives of the warring parties are holding talks in Saudi Arabia.
More than 5,100 people were
also wounded in connection with the fighting, World Health Organization
spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told reporters. On Monday, the Sudanese Doctors’
Syndicate, which tracks only civilian casualties, said that the fatalities had
reached 487.
The conflict started on April
15, after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by Gen.
Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support
Forces, or RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The fighting has turned urban
areas into battlefields and displaced nearly 700,000 people on top of the 3.7
million who had already been internally displaced within the country before the
conflict began, according to the U.N. migration agency.
On Monday, the Saudi Foreign
Ministry said that talks between delegations of both warring sides were
expected to continue for a few more days in the coastal city of Jeddah.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin
Griffiths proposed “a declaration of commitments” to representatives of the
rival Sudanese forces to guarantee the safe passage of humanitarian aid, U.N.
deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at U.N. headquarters Tuesday.
He said Griffiths made the proposal in Jeddah and “is encouraged” that there were consultations on the declaration, “so that was a step forward.”
The talks are part of a
diplomatic initiative proposed by the kingdom and the United States in hopes of
ending the fighting. Meanwhile, Burhan accused the RSF of using residential
neighborhoods as their military bases and civilians as human shields.
In an interview late Monday
with an Egyptian TV channel, Al-Qahira Al-Akhbariya, he insisted they must
withdraw all their troops from the capital, Khartoum, before any truce
agreement can be reached.
“If this is not achieved,
there will be no point in going to Saudi Arabia, or engaging in any
negotiations,” he said. “We won’t go ahead with any initiative that does not
bring back normalcy and ensure the safety of our citizens.”
The RSF has not responded to
Burhan’s statement.
Also on Tuesday, the U.N.
special envoy for the Horn of Africa said the conflict is “profoundly”
affecting Sudan’s relations with neighboring South Sudan.
Hanna Serwaa Tetteh told the
U.N. Security Council that the unstable situation has “the potential for more
than 200,000 South Sudanese refugees hosted by the Sudan returning home
prematurely to a country where two-thirds of the population already needs
humanitarian assistance.”
South Sudan is facing violent
clashes and increasing disillusionment and frustration as it struggles to
implement the most challenging provisions of a fragile 2018 power-sharing
agreement, according to the U.N.
Before the conflict in Sudan
erupted, Tetteh said, relations between Sudan and South Sudan were stable and
there were regular meetings between officials of both countries, including at
the highest level.
But she said “the conflict in
the Sudan is putting the incremental progress achieved by the two countries in
addressing their outstanding bilateral issues in jeopardy.”
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