Sudan War

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Thursday, citing allegations against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, and obstructing humanitarian aid while refusing to engage in peace talks last year.

South Sudan's foreign ministry summoned Sudan's ambassador over the alleged killings earlier this week, and President Salva Kiir Mayardit called for calm.

He highlighted efforts to secure humanitarian assistance but admitted they had fallen short of ending the violence.

The RSF chose to withdraw after being overwhelmed in the lead-up to the takeover, sources in the paramilitary said.

This is not the first time RSF is cancelling a press briefing in Nairobi. In 2023, they planned a similar press conference at a hotel in Nairobi's Westlands area but had it cancelled after journalists had waited for several hours.

Sudan's army and RSF have been fighting for almost two years, creating a humanitarian crisis in which UN agencies struggle to deliver relief.

Following his trip, Lamamra shared his hopes for an end to the conflict, and the role of the UN in bringing about peace in the country.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are engaged in a civil war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and are adamantly opposed to a famine declaration for fear it would result in diplomatic pressure to ease border controls and lead to greater foreign engagement with the RSF.

Sudan’s withdrawal from the IPC system could undermine humanitarian efforts to help millions of Sudanese suffering from extreme hunger.

Dozens of RSF soldiers were killed, vehicles destroyed and supplies captured as they captured the base, they said.

The UN rights office said it had documented the deaths of at least 782 civilians and more than 1,143 injured since May.

The US Special Envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, said last week any such new administration would be a step backwards.

Sources reported that RSF has agreed to return to the negotiating table, while the Sudanese army has expressed initial, albeit unofficial, approval to participate.

Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution as happened in West Darfur last year.

At meetings with senior US officials in Washington this fall, UAE delegates dropped their denials of providing backing to the RSF after they were shown intelligence Washington had collected.

The UN says the conflict has driven 11 million people from their homes and unleashed the world's biggest hunger crisis.

The Sudanese army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces traded airstrikes that led to the loss of over 100 civilian lives.

In the Zamzam displaced persons’ camp, children were dying for months before it was found to be in famine.

Kenya, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Uganda, and Ethiopia, are bearing the brunt of the increased movement of Sudanese nationals into their countries.

The report identifies a range of problems in the WFP’s Sudan response, including an inability to scale up its operations.

The museum, in the midst of the warzone and in an area controlled by the RSF, has suffered from the “fog-of-war”. This means that very little clear information is escaping from behind RSF lines about what is happening inside the museum.

Some of the food is intended for 14 areas of the country that face famine or are at risk of famine, including the Zamzam camp in the Darfur region.

The draft resolution called on the parties to the conflict to "immediately cease hostilities and engage, in good faith, in dialogue to agree steps to de-escalate the conflict with the aim of urgently agreeing a national ceasefire".

The visit came as the RSF continued revenge attacks in eastern El Gezira state and a campaign to take over the army's last Darfur stronghold al-Fashir.

The island in the middle of the Nile serves as a microcosm for the devastation unleashed by a war that began in April 2023.

They regretted that the conflict has since devastated Khartoum and other regions, claiming thousands of lives, displacing millions, and triggering an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

The IGAD Special Envoy to Sudan has proposed the Peace and Security Contingency Mechanism (PSCM), a non-combatant peacekeeping and observatory body under the African Union's Expanded Mechanism.

While local activists say that more than 300 people have died, a group of Hilaliya residents in the diaspora provided a list of more than 400 fatalities, a number they say is increasing by the hour.

The war erupted from a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule.

DiCarlo condemned not only the RSF attacks but also the indiscriminate airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in civilian-populated areas such as the capital Khartoum and El Fasher.