Deputy Guterres visits Sudan, meets Burhan

Sudan – UN Deputy Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Amina Mohammed, visited Sudan where she met with the Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and a number of officials in Port Sudan, to discuss the situation in the country that has been torn apart by war for more than a year.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Hussein Awad said in a press statement that Al-Burhan briefed the UN official on the situation in the country and the efforts made by the government to open safe corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to citizens.

Awad urged the United Nations to do more work and put pressure on what he called the “rebels” (Rapid Support Forces) who are obstructing the arrival of this aid and seizing relief convoys to distribute them to their various entities, according to his description.

For her part, Amina Mohammed said that her visit to Sudan came to monitor developments in the situation. She appreciated the step taken by the Sudanese government to open the Adre border crossing for the passage of humanitarian aid to citizens affected by the war.

She explained that the United Nations also pays attention to Sudanese refugees who left their country for neighboring countries, and works to support and assist them.

The UN official confirmed that she came, accompanied by Ramtane Lamamra, the UN Secretary-General’s envoy, to emphasize the need to find solutions to the Sudanese crisis, stop the war, and end the suffering of the Sudanese, by implementing what was agreed upon in the Jeddah forum.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been witnessing a raging war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces led by Burhan’s former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti).

Since May 6, 2023, Riyadh and Washington have sponsored talks between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, which resulted on the 11th of the same month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the first agreement between the two sides to commit to protecting civilians, and the announcement of more than one truce during which violations and exchange of accusations occurred between the two parties, which prompted the mediators to suspend the negotiations.

While negotiations held in Geneva, Switzerland, this month failed to bring together the two warring parties to find a settlement to the conflict, after the army insisted on its demand to implement the Jeddah Declaration first.