Sudan battles rage as Saudi hosts latest truce talks

Gun battles and air strikes on Sunday again flared in Sudan’s capital, which has been rocked by four weeks of fighting despite the latest ceasefire efforts backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Multiple truce deals have been declared and quickly violated since fighting erupted between army and paramilitary forces on April 15 in the poverty-stricken country with a history of political instability.

Fierce combat since then has killed at least 700 people, most of them civilians, wounded thousands and driven a mass of exodus of Sudanese and foreign nationals.

In embattled Khartoum, fighter jets have bombed enemy positions as terrified residents stayed barricaded indoors amid dire shortages of water, food, medicines and other staples.

Across the Red Sea, in the Saudi city of Jeddah, talks were underway aiming for a ceasefire that could aid the desperate efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged population.

The generals leading the warring parties have blamed each other for the violence, but have said little about the talks being held in Jeddah since Saturday.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Nabil Abdalla said the talks were on how a truce “can be correctly implemented to serve the humanitarian side”, while Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), only said on Twitter that he welcomed the technical discussions.

Riyad and Washington have supported the “pre-negotiation talks” and urged the belligerents to “get actively involved”.

Hopes for these and other international efforts to silence the guns have been modest as fighting have raged, threatening a descent into full-scale civil war and a major humanitarian disaster.

Meanwhile both sides have pushed on for military advantage on the ground, in the capital and in fighting elsewhere, including the long-troubled Darfur region.

The army, commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has air power and probably more troops, at around 100,000 forces.

But the RSF, which emerged out of the notorious Janjaweed militia accused of war crimes in Darfur region, employs guerrilla tactics that, Krieg said, can make them “more agile”.

At least 700 people have been killed in the fighting so far, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The Sudanese doctors’ union said 479 of the dead were civilians.