Saudi Arabia is negotiating a ceasefire while fighting continues in Khartoum.
Here’s what it looks like on Monday, May 8, 2023:
struggle
- Envoys from Sudan’s warring parties – the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – were in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for talks that mediators hope will end the three-week conflict, with fighting continuing in Khartoum.
- Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reported from Khartoum that the Sudanese army “has made it clear that this is not a peace negotiation; this is only about opening humanitarian corridors for those who need aid … and for those who want to leave the capital,” Morgan said.
- Ahmed al-Amin, a resident of the Haj Yousif district northeast of Khartoum, told AFP on Sunday that he “saw fighter jets flying over us, heard explosions and anti-aircraft fire”.
Humanitarian situation:
- Since the fighting broke out in Khartoum, UNHCR has registered more than 30,000 people into South Sudan, more than 90 percent of whom are South Sudanese. The true figure is likely to be much higher, it said.
- In Egypt, at least 64,000 people have crossed into the country, where an estimated 4 million Sudanese are already living.
- Thousands also crossed into neighboring Ethiopia, mostly third-country nationals. More than 100,000 people have fled Sudan so far.
- At least 700 people have been killed in the fighting, which has rapidly spread beyond Khartoum to Darfur and elsewhere, according to the Armed Conflict Locations and Events Data Project. The Sudanese Doctors Union said 479 of the dead were civilians.
diplomatic
- Saudi Arabia will provide $100 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, Saudi Arabian state television said on Sunday.
- Meanwhile, ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia have so far made “no significant progress”, a Saudi diplomat told AFP on Monday.
- Western powers are backing a transition to a civilian government in a country at a strategic crossroads between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the restive Sahel.
- But heavyweights in the pan-Arab bloc are divided on Sudan. According to experts, Egypt strongly supports the regular army led by Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, while the UAE supports the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
