After weeks of brutal fighting that left hundreds dead, Sudan’s rival military factions have agreed to meet in person for the first time.
The “pre-negotiation” talks set to be held in the Saudi city of Jeddah between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Force (RSF) were organized by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, both countries said in a statement.
The face-to-face meeting comes after three weeks of intense fighting over who will run the nation of Sudan that came to a boiling point on April 15 when the RSF took control of the presidential palace, the state TV station, the army chief’s home, and Khartoum International Airport.
The heads of both fighting forces, Sudanese Army General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo had previously worked alongside each other as allies.
In 2019, both groups joined forces to remove former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir from office before the two military factions began fighting for control of the country in 2021, culminating in the April takeover by the RSF.
Since then, at least 500 have been killed and 4,500 others have been injured in the civil war, NPR reported.
More than 100,000 have fled the country amid the conflict, which has turned the country’s capital into a war zone, while those who remain report running out of food and water.
“There is no water, and there is also no electricity and also no market,” Doctors Without Borders coordinator Mohamed Gibreel Adam, who lives in the city of El Fasher in Darfur, told NPR. “And all the humanitarian actors, especially the international community, have left.”
People there have “a fear, lack of protection, like hopeless, the feeling that they were left alone in this kind of dire and very critical situation.”
Ahead of the meeting, the two sides agreed to a week-long cease-fire that began on Thursday,
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