Sudan’s army has sent a delegation to the Saudi city of Jeddah for ceasefire talks as part of a joint Saudi and US initiative to end the conflict lead by to generals.
The army said in a statement that the delegation left for Jeddah on Friday evening after both the army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they will only discuss humanitarian ceasefires and not negotiations on ending the conflict in Sudan.
The army delegation will discuss “details of the truce in the process of being extended” with its paramilitary foes, the Sudanese army said.
The joint initiative aims at “reducing the levels of tension” in Sudan, a statement by the Saudi foreign ministry said on Friday.
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Meanwhile, the Rapid Support Forces RSF has also send a delegation for the talks, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing a paramilitary official.
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said sources in the Sudanese army have confirmed that a delegation left for Jeddah, and that it included three army officers among them a general as well as an ambassador.
She said “the purpose of these talks is to focus on the humanitarian conditions here in the capital and to open humanitarian corridors for those who are in need of assistance.”
Air raids and gunfire continued to rock Sudan’s capital showing no signs of abating despite attempts at a lasting ceasefire.
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Regular army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had given his backing to a weeklong ceasefire brokered by South Sudan on Wednesday, but early on Friday, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they were extending by three days a previous truce brokered under US-Saudi mediation.
Multiple truces have been agreed to since the fighting between the rival security forces erupted on April 15, but none has been respected.
Hundreds have died in three weeks of fighting between forces of Sudan’s de facto leader al-Burhan, and his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the RSF.
Battles persisted a day after US President Joe Biden threatened sanctions against those responsible for “threatening the peace, security, and stability of Sudan” and “undermining Sudan’s democratic transition”.
The North African country had already suffered under decades of sanctions during the rule of longtime president Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in a palace coup in 2019 following mass protests on the streets.