RSF announces unilateral three-month ‘humanitarian truce’ in Sudan
Statement comes hours after warring Sudanese Armed Forces leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan rejected ceasefire proposal as biased.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have announced an apparently unilateral three-month humanitarian truce in the country’s civil war.
RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, made the announcement on Monday in a recorded address. The warring Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan did not immediately confirm that any agreement had been reached.
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Al-Burhan late on Sunday had rejected a ceasefire proposal put forward by the so-called Quad – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. He took particular issue with the presence in the grouping of the UAE, which has long rejected accusations that it is arming and funding the RSF.
On Monday, Hemedti said the RSF agreed to the truce in cooperation with the Quad, the African Union and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) bloc and sought to enhance civilian protections and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The RSF had previously announced earlier this month that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal put forward by the Quad, but resumed drone strikes on territory held by the SAF soon afterwards.
Hemedti further called the unilateral pause the first step in reaching a political solution to the fighting, which began in April 2023 after a tenuous power-sharing agreement between al-Burhan and Hemedti collapsed.
The commander added that the RSF had approved creating a field-monitoring mechanism and expressed the group’s “complete commitment” to holding those who have “committed violations against civilians” accountable.
Fighting in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 14 million or more, and sparked a humanitarian crisis, with both sides accused of committing abuses.
The RSF took control of the city of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, last month.
Satellite images have shown RSF fighters burning and burying bodies in large numbers in what observers have called an effort to hide evidence of mass killings.
It remained unclear if al-Burhan’s position had changed at all from Sunday, when he called the Quad-backed proposal the “worst yet”.
He said the deal “effectively eliminates the existence of the armed forces and … the dissolution of all security agencies” while it “maintains the rebellious militia in its positions”.
“No one in Sudan will accept the presence of these rebels or for them to be part of any solution in the future,” al-Burhan said on Sunday.