PRESSURE ON BURHAN
Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa project director at the International Crisis Group, said Burhan was facing “serious internal divisions”, with some in his camp in favour of talks and others “fiercely opposed”.
Notably, with the United States in charge, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt present, “that puts all the main outside actors with leverage over the warring parties in one room together”, he told AFP.
The government no-show could leave Burhan under mounting external pressure if he is seen as “the main obstacle to ending the war”, said Boswell.
Previous talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah came to nothing.
Cameron Hudson, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa programme, told AFP that Washington had “tried to create the illusion of momentum” to force the army’s hand, “but it was a bluff and the SAF saw through it”.
“The only way to get them to talk is through brute force: Either the risk of losing the war on the battlefield, the risk of real diplomatic isolation and the risk of real economic devastation for them. None of that pressure currently exists.”
“PEACE, NOW”
There has been no let-up in the fighting.
The Emergency Lawyers – a group of volunteer lawyers who have documented human rights violations during the war – reported “increased indiscriminate artillery shelling by the RSF on civilian areas” this week, particularly in El-Fasher and Omdurman, where they reported strikes on a school, a bus carrying civilian passengers and a hospital.
Around a hundred demonstrators gathered outside the UN headquarters in Geneva, chanting: “Action for Sudan” and holding a banner reading “Stop the catastrophic war”.
“We are not naive but this is critical now and they have to sit down and negotiate peace. We want peace now, ceasefire now,” co-organiser Lina Rasheed told AFP.
Amani Maghoub, who came especially from London, said: “The situation is so bad, we want the war to stop right now,” adding: “We want justice for the Sudanese.”
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