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.
Post a Comment