Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan at Sudan ceasefire talks in Jeddah, May 20th 2023 |
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and the United
States have brokered a seven-day ceasefire between Sudan's warring factions.
Representatives of both army
chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo signed
up to the ceasefire in Jeddah where they also agreed not to seek any military
advantage before it commences on Monday night at 2145 local time.
"It will be automatically
renewed until we reach a permanent cease-fire through mechanisms, we will
discuss in the coming days to achieve confidence between the parties and for
more humanitarian services for the Sudanese citizen," said Ali Jafar,
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Sudan.
However, many ceasefires have
been announced and then immediately ignored since the fighting broke out five
weeks ago.
And even after this latest
ceasefire was announced air strikes and artillery exchanges shook Khartoum on
Saturday and armed men ransacked the Qatari embassy.
"This Sudanese blood is
precious to you more than anyone else, and you know the importance of saving
it," said Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister
after the deal was reached on Saturday.
"I hope this agreement
will be a hope for the Sudanese people, especially the people of Khartoum, in
which they can finish their humanitarian services in the seven days and
hopefully, it will be more," he added.
The conflict has now killed
hundreds of people, most of them civilians, and displaced more than a million
people.
The humanitarian situation is
deteriorating in Sudan, Africa's third-largest country, where one in three
people already already relied on aid before the fighting broke out.
Saturday's ceasefire
announcement comes two weeks after representatives of the warring generals
first gathered in Jeddah for talks.
By May 11 they had signed a
commitment to respect humanitarian principles and allow in badly needed aid.
But UN aid chief Martin
Griffiths told AFP on Thursday that there had been "important and
egregious" violations of that agreement, which fell short of a ceasefire.
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