The head of the Sudanese army demanded the dismissal of the UN envoy, making him bear the responsibility for the war which broke out six weeks ago with the paramilitaries and left more than 1,800 dead.
Washington and Riyadh have called on the two sides to continue their discussions to extend the truce which is due to end on Monday at 9:45 p.m. local time (7:45 p.m. GMT), the official Saudi press agency SPA reported overnight.
This umpteenth ceasefire, which came into effect on Monday evening to allow fleeing civilians and humanitarian aid to pass, did not lead to a significant drop in fighting, like previous truces.
On April 15, the day army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and paramilitary boss General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo began hostilities, they were supposed to meet for negotiations.
For weeks, the international community, led by the UN, had been demanding that they agree on the integration of General Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (FSR) into the army.
While many observers predicted a failure of the talks, the UN envoy to Sudan Volker Perthes proclaimed his "optimism".
On the day the war broke out, he admitted to being "taken by surprise".
In a letter addressed to the UN, of which AFP consulted a copy, General Burhane accuses Mr. Perthes of having "concealed" in his reports to the UN the explosive situation in Khartoum. Without these "lies", General "Daglo would not have launched his military operations".
Mr. Perthes, again accuses the letter, has respected neither his duty of "impartiality" nor "national sovereignty", becoming "a party and no longer a mediator".
UN boss Antonio Guterres said he was "shocked", showing "his full confidence" in his envoy.
Washington also expressed its "resolute support" and its "confidence" in Mr. Perthes, according to a statement from State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, and expressed its "concern" about the letter addressed to the United Nations.
Mr. Perthes, who recently left for New York, “might not be able to return to Sudan and surely knew it when he left,” says researcher Kholood Khair. For her, the weight of the Islamists in the Burhane camp continues to increase and the granting or not of an entry visa to Mr. Perthes "will be a decisive test to gauge" their resurgence.
For a long time, pro-democracies have accused General Burhane of being instrumentalized by the Islamists of the regime of Omar el-Bashir (1989-2019).
Proof of this is the return to business of several officials of the military-Islamist dictatorship since the putsch of 2021 thanks to which the two generals, now rivals, removed civilians from power.
Researcher Alex de Waal also believes that since the start of the war, the weight of the Islamists behind Burhane is even more glaring.
Its supporters are "a network (...) of companies, banks and telecommunications companies run by Islamists, intelligence officers or the army itself", he says.
General Daglo also plays on this rhetoric: he repeats at will to fight "the Islamists" and the "vestiges of the old regime". And he is the cantor of "democracy" and "human rights", even though his thousands of men are accused of having committed atrocities on behalf of Bashir during the war in Darfur (west) in the 2000s.
Despite everything, the army camp seems divided: when General Burhane demanded the dismissal of Mr. Perthes, his new number two, the former rebel leader Malik Agar, discussed a way out of the crisis with the UN envoy.
In the meantime, the army has recalled all its retirees. The FSR denounced "a dangerous decision" and accused the army of having carried out new air raids in violation of the truce.
Since the putsch, thousands of people supporting the army and the Islamists have demonstrated against Mr. Perthes. As under Bashir, they say they refuse the "interference" of the UN.
Monday in New York, Mr. Perthes had retorted that those responsible for the violence were "the two generals at war" and not the UN.
Since April 15, the war has claimed more than 1,800 lives, according to the NGO ACLED. And, according to the UN, more than a million displaced persons and 300,000 refugees.
"We cannot look away," pleaded American actor George Clooney, as the UN reminds us that it lacks 1.5 billion dollars to assist the 25 million Sudanese who need help to survive.
The head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, on a visit to Egypt, called on the two rival generals "to listen to the tragic stories of the refugees".
"If they are really thinking about the people, they should stop fighting right away," he added.
05/28/2023 04:34:25 - Khartoum (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
