UN warns on Sudan escalation, Israel proposes talks
Israel has proposed hosting rival Sudanese leaders for ceasefire talks after “very promising” progress in mediation efforts led by a senior Israeli official.
“Since fighting erupted in the country, Israel has been operating in various channels to reach a ceasefire and the progress over the past few days in discussions with the sides is very promising,” Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in a statement.
A battle-damaged street in Khartoum, Sudan, 23 April 2023 (issued 24 April 2023). Indonesian Embassy KBRI Khartoum / HANDOUT/EPA
The statement gave no further details other than saying the official had been holding discussions with the warring generals.
Sudan and Israel announced in February they had finalised a deal normalising ties, with the signing due to follow a transfer of power from the military to a civilian government in Khartoum.
Cohen said he hoped that working to achieve calm in Sudan “would allow for the signing of a historic peace agreement”.
Countries raced to extract their citizens from Sudan on Monday as the United Nations chief warned of the risk of “a catastrophic conflagration” with wide repercussions and urged international powers to exert maximum pressure for peace.
One 65-vehicle convoy took dozens of children among hundreds of diplomats and aid workers on an 800-km, 35-hour journey in searing heat from the embattled capital Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
The eruption of violence between the military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 has killed at least 427 people, knocked out hospitals and other services and turned residential areas into war zones.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned 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”.
He urged the 15 members of the UN Security Council to use their clout to return Sudan to the path of democratic transition after a 2021 military coup that followed the fall of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
“We must all do everything within our power to pull Sudan back from the edge of the abyss… We stand with them at this terrible time,” he said, adding he had authorised temporary relocation of some UN personnel and families.
The Security Council planned a meeting on Sudan on Tuesday.
The United States government demanded that warring parties adhere to an immediate truce and ensure the protection of civilians.
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.
For those remaining in Africa’s third largest country, where a third of its 46 million people needed aid even before the violence, the situation was increasingly bleak.
There are acute shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel and limited access to communications and electricity, with prices skyrocketing, said deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
He cited further reports of looting of humanitarian supplies and warehouses and said “intense fighting” in Khartoum as well as Northern, Blue Nile, North Kordofan and Darfur, was hindering relief operations.
Facing attacks, aid organisations were among those withdrawing staff and the World Food Programme has suspended its food distribution mission, one of the largest in the world.
AAP
