Sudan
3 min read
Sudan paramilitary group agrees to a ceasefire proposal after massacre in an army stronghold it overran
It was not immediately clear Thursday whether the Sudanese military would also accept the truce to halt 18 months of conflict with the Rapid Support Forces.
By Henry Austin
A paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of civilians in Sudan said Thursday it had agreed to a humanitarian ceasefire proposal from U.S.-led mediators.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been widely accused of carrying out atrocities during 18 months of fighting, said in a statement that it had accepted the truce “in order to address the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the war and to enhance the protection of civilians.”
The ceasefire would "ensure the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance to all Sudanese people," the group added about the proposal put forward by a mediator group known as the Quad and made up of the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
A Sudanese military official told The Associated Press that the army would only agree to a truce that includes the RSF withdrawing from civilian areas and giving up weapons.
The RSF seized control of the city of el-Fasher, the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region, over a week ago. Civilians fleeing the area and satellite imagery suggest many of those remaining in the city have been slaughtered.
The war that erupted in April 2023 has forced more than 14 million people from their homes and fueled disease outbreaks. Two regions of Sudan are enduring a famine that’s at risk of spreading, according to the United Nations.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the war, according to U.N. figures, although aid groups say the true death toll is likely many times higher.
The RSF said it was looking forward "to implementing the agreement and immediately commencing discussions on the arrangements for a cessation of hostilities."
Fighting has raged in Sudan since the military, controlled by the country’s top commander and de facto ruler, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, then partners in power, clashed over plans to integrate their forces.
Burhan and his former deputy, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — a former camel dealer widely known as Hemedti who leads the RSF — were leaders of a 2019 counterinsurgency that led to the ouster of longtime President Omar al-Bashir.
Two years later, they agreed to rule together after a coup that brought down the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
But their alliance spectacularly broke down over how to manage the transition to a civilian government, and, with neither seemingly willing to cede power, the war broke out.
The United States determined in January that RSF members and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan and imposed sanctions on Dagalo. It had previously sanctioned other leaders, as well as army officials.
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