‘Country is falling apart’
Warplanes on bombing raids drew heavy anti-aircraft fire over Khartoum yesterday as fierce fighting between Sudan's army and paramilitaries entered a third week, violating a renewed truce.
Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his number two Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to multiple truces but none has effectively taken hold as the number of dead civilians continues to rise and chaos and lawlessness grip Khartoum, a city of five million people where many have been cloistered in their homes lacking food, water, and electricity.
"There is no right to go on fighting for power when the country is falling apart," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Al Arabiya television, reports AFP.
Guterres threw his support behind African-led mediation efforts.
"My appeal is for everything to be done to support an African-led initiative for peace in Sudan," he told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya.
Meanwhile, Volker Perthes, UN special representative in Sudan told Reuters yesterday that warring sides in Sudan are more open to negotiations and have accepted the conflict that cannot continue.
He said the sides had nominated representatives for talks which had been suggested for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, or Juba in South Sudan, though he said there was a practical question over whether they could get there to "actually sit together".
He said no timeline had been set for talks.
Volker Perthes, who gave a possible flicker of hope even as fighting continued, noted that he had told the Security Council both sides thought they could win the conflict, most recently in a briefing a couple of days ago, but he also said attitudes were changing.
"They both think they will win, but they are both sort of more open to negotiations, the word 'negotiations' or 'talks' was not there in their discourse in the first week or so," he said.
"They have both accepted that this war cannot continue," he added.
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