A seven-day ceasefire between the rival factions in Sudan has been mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia after weeks of intense fighting.
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s representative and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, both signed the cease-fire agreement in Jeddah, where they also pledged not to seek any military advantage prior to the cease-fire’s start on Monday night.
“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.
Air strikes and artillery exchanges continued on Saturday in Khartoum even after the announcement of the most recent ceasefire, 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.
More than a million individuals have been forced from their homes as a result of the violence, the majority of them were civilians.
In Sudan, the third-largest nation in Africa, where one in three people were already dependent on help before the fighting started, the humanitarian crisis is getting worse.
The news of the ceasefire on Saturday came two weeks after the initial meeting of the warring generals’ representatives in Jeddah.
By May 11, they had agreed to uphold humanitarian standards and permit desperately needed aid to enter.
But UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told newsmen on Thursday that there had been “important and egregious” violations of that agreement, which fell short of a ceasefire.