KHARTOUM, Sudan
Sudan's army chief is not ready to meet the enemy general he's been at war with for eight weeks, a government official said Tuesday after a regional bloc proposed a face-to-face encounter between the two.
At a summit held in Djibouti
on Monday, East Africa's Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(Igad) announced it would expand the number of countries tasked with resolving
the crisis, with Kenya chairing a quartet including Ethiopia, Somalia and South
Sudan.
Sudanese Army Chief Abdel
Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti,
have been at war since April 15 after they fell out in a power struggle
following a 2021 coup that derailed Sudan's transition to democracy.
A draft communique of the Igad
meeting released by the office of Kenyan President William Ruto said the
quartet leaders would "arrange (a) face-to-face meeting between Burhan and
Daglo in one of the regional capitals".
The Sudanese government
official, not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP that in
the current circumstances, Burhan will not sit at the same table as
Hemeti, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The two generals early in the
war described each other as criminals, and both sides have failed to respect
multiple truces.
On June 1 the United States imposed sanctions on the two warring
groups but fighting has continued, including in Khartoum on Tuesday where
witnesses reported artillery strikes in the north of the capital and its
suburbs.
More than 1,800 people have
been killed since battles began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and
Event Data Project (Acled).
Fighting has forced nearly two
million people from their homes, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in
neighbouring countries, the United Nations says.
A record 25 million people --
more than half the population -- are in need of aid and protection, according
to the UN.
Prior to the announcement of
the Igad quartet, the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, had led the
regional bloc's committee on Sudan, which did not include Ethiopia.
Sudan's foreign ministry said
Tuesday that it had reservations about some points in the Igad statement, and
the Sudanese delegation demanded that Kiir stay on as head of the committee.
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