KHARTOUM (Reuters) -The U.S. said on Monday that the warring factions in Sudan agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire while Western, Arab and Asian nations raced to extract their citizens from the country.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the truce deal followed two days of intense negotiations and would begin on Tuesday. The two sides have not abided by several temporary truce deals over the past week.
Fighting erupted between Sudan’s armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 and has killed at least 427 people, knocked out hospitals and other services and turned residential areas into war zones.
“During this period, the United States urges the SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) and RSF to immediately and fully uphold the ceasefire. To support a durable end to the fighting, the United States will coordinate with regional and international partners, and Sudanese civilian stakeholders,” Blinken said in a statement.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the violence in a country that flanks the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Sahel regions “risks a catastrophic conflagration … that could engulf the whole region and beyond”.
The Security Council planned a meeting on Sudan on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of people, including Sudanese and citizens from neighbouring countries, have fled in the past few days, including to Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, despite instability and difficult living conditions there.
Foreign governments have been working to bring their nationals to safety. One 65-vehicle convoy took dozens of children among hundreds of diplomats and aid workers on an 800-km (500-mile), 35-hour journey in searing heat from the embattled capital Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Khartoum; Aidan Lewis in Cairo; Sabine Siebold and Martin Schlicht in Berlin and Simon Johnson in Stockholm; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel, Mark Heinrich and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Andrew Cawthorne and Grant McCool)
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