Sudan army shuns talks in Switzerland as civil war rages

US-led talks on the 16-month civil war in Sudan opened in Switzerland on Wednesday, with the discussion centring on humanitarian assistance for millions facing hunger, and displacement amid the brutal conflict.

Only one of the two warring parties accepted the US invitation to the talks, with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) choosing to shun the meeting.

A power struggle between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been raging in the African country, which lies south of Egypt, since April 2023.

“Belligerents must respect international humanitarian law and enable humanitarian assistance.

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“It is high time for the guns to be silenced!” wrote US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello on X.

“The RSF delegation has arrived in Switzerland.

“Our US delegation, and the collective international partners, technical experts, and Sudanese civil society, are still waiting on the SAF.

“The world is watching,” he wrote in another post.

Perriello said earlier this week in Geneva that the talks aim to secure a truce to get more humanitarian aid into the country.

Talks on the country’s political future are not planned.

Experts say a famine is already raging in the North Darfur region, where hundreds of thousands have sought refuge.

The UN is calling it the world’s largest refugee crisis and a humanitarian disaster.

Many regions of the country are inaccessible to humanitarian aid workers due to the war.

The United Nations says that more than 25 million people are threatened by hunger.

Representatives of the RSF and delegations from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, representatives of the African
Union and the United Nations travelled to Switzerland for the talks.

The exact location of the meeting has not been disclosed for security reasons.

The fighting has displaced more than 10 million people in the country and others have fled across the borders.

According to the UN, both parties to the conflict are obstructing access to aid convoys.

Another problem is that the UN’s drive for donations, totalling 2.7 billion dollars this year, has attracted around a third of the required funding.

The German charity Welthungerhilfe calls for humanitarian corridors in the country because of the worsening famine.

“The world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Sudan,” the charity’s secretary general, Matthias Mogge, said ahead of the talks.

More than 25 million people – half of the population – are “in a critical food situation and 755,000 are at acute risk of starvation,” he added.

According to UN estimates, at least 100 people die of hunger every day in Sudan; at least 30% of children are considered acutely malnourished.

In addition to the conflict, heavy rains and flooding have now destroyed houses and roads, forcing tens of thousands to flee. (dpa/NAN)