US announces Sudan ceasefire talks

WASHINGTON

The United States announced Tuesday that it had invited Sudan's warring sides to hold ceasefire talks in Switzerland next month.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had invited Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to start U.S.-mediated negotiations beginning on August 14.

"The United States remains committed to working with partners to end this devastating war," Blinken said in a statement.

The commander of the RSF, at war with the army for over a year, said he "welcomed" Blinken's invitation and that his side would join the negotiations.

"I declare our participation in the upcoming ceasefire talks on August 14, 2024, in Switzerland," Mohamed Hamdan Daglo wrote on social media site X.

Previous negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have failed to put an end to fighting that has displaced millions, sparked warnings of famine and left swaths of the capital Khartoum in ruins.

Subsequent mediation attempts, including by the African Union, have failed to get the warring parties in the same room, as experts said both forces vied for the tactical advantage on the ground.

For more than a year, the brutal war has raged in the northeast African country between the regular military under army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Daglo.

The conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and uprooted more than 10 million people, including two million who have fled across borders, according to the United Nations.

"The talks in Switzerland aim to reach a nationwide cessation of violence, enabling humanitarian access to all those in need, and develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure implementation of any agreement," Blinken said.

The U.S.-mediated talks will be co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and will include the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations as observers, the State Department said.

'No military solution'

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that "there is no military solution to the conflict in Sudan."

"Convening these national ceasefire talks and making clear that they are backed by key international stakeholders is the only way to prove to end the conflict," he said.

Asked about the chances of the talks succeeding, however, Miller acknowledged that "we just want to get the parties back to the table," calling it "the best shot that we have right now at getting a nationwide cessation of violence."

Both sides have been accused of war crimes including deliberately targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, and blocking humanitarian aid, while the fighting has caused many humanitarian organizations to cease operations in the country.

A recent U.N.-backed report said nearly 26 million people, or slightly more than half of the population, were facing high levels of "acute food insecurity."

Indirect talks between the RSF and Sudanese military, held this month in Geneva by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, were called an "encouraging" first step by the U.N.

The talks focused on humanitarian aid and protecting civilians, though neither side met directly with the other.

UN investigators decry patterns of grave violations in Sudan

A team of U.N. investigators said they had met in Chad with victims of violence in Sudan's brutal civil war and had documented "disturbing patterns" of grave abuses.

The recently established U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the situation in Sudan said it had spent three weeks in Chad meeting with survivors of the conflict in Sudan, members of Sudanese civil society and other observers.

The people they spoke to had detailed firsthand accounts of "horrific acts of killings, sexual violence, including gang rape", the team said in a statement.

"These brutal acts must stop and the perpetrators must be brought to justice," mission member Mona Rishmawi said.