A high-ranking United Nations official arrived Wednesday in violence-torn Sudan as the deadline approaches for the latest shaky cease-fire agreement between the two warring factions.
U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths tweeted that he was in the beleaguered city of Port Sudan to "reaffirm the @UN's commitment to the Sudanese people."
Scores of people have crowded into Sudan's main seaport to escape the nearly three-week-old fighting between Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Sudan's health ministry says 550 people reportedly have been killed and more than 4,900 wounded since the fighting began on April 15 after relations between the two factions fell apart.
South Sudan's foreign ministry announced Tuesday that Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, have agreed to a new weeklong cease-fire agreement that will take effect Thursday.
Previous cease-fire agreements of various lengths have consistently been violated during the fighting, however, with neither side able to secure a quick victory nor showing any signs of backing down - raising the specter of a prolonged conflict that could draw in other countries.
South Sudanese President Salva Kiir stressed the importance of a longer truce and the naming of envoys to peace talks, to which both sides agreed.
Burhan and Dagalo were allies in Sudan's transitional government after a 2021 coup, and they shared power as part of an internationally backed transition toward free elections and civilian government.
With fighting now in its third week, the conflict has forced 100,000 people to flee Sudan for safety, and it is creating a refugee crisis in neighboring impoverished countries, the United Nations said.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said his government would support talks in Sudan between the rival factions but said he also was "being careful about not interfering in their domestic matters."
"The entire region could be affected," he said in an interview Tuesday with a Japanese newspaper, as an envoy from Sudan's army chief met with Egyptian officials in Cairo.
The U.N. World Food Program said Monday it was resuming work in the safer parts of Sudan after a pause earlier in the conflict after some aid workers were killed.
The agency said in a statement on Monday that distribution of food is expected to commence in the states of Gedaref, Gezira, Kassala and White Nile in the coming days to provide life-saving assistance.
"The risk is that this is not just going to be a Sudan crisis, it's going to be a regional crisis," said Michael Dunford, the aid agency's East Africa director.
The United Nations migration agency said earlier this week that at least 334,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan since deadly fighting broke out last month, in addition to the 100,000 who have fled the country. The U.N. refugee agency, meanwhile, has warned the fighting could cause more than 800,000 people to flee the northeastern African country.
The top U.N. official in Sudan, Volker Perthes, told The Associated Press on Monday that Sudan's warring generals have agreed to send representatives -- potentially to Saudi Arabia -- for negotiations.
The Sudanese ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, told VOA he hopes the cease-fire eventually will lead to meaningful long-term peace talks.
He said, "a cease-fire, truce, is a two-way traffic," and noted peace can only be realized if all parties respect the terms of any deal.
The fighting in Sudan has forced foreign governments to pull their citizens from the country.
Russia's military announced Tuesday that more than 200 people will be evacuated on four military transports.
Hundreds of Americans reached the eastern city of Port Sudan last weekend, watched over by U.S. military drones. Saudi officials said Monday that a U.S. Navy ship took more than 300 evacuees from Port Sudan to the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that three U.S. convoys evacuated more than 700 people since Friday and reported a total of more than 1,000 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the violence started.
The violence has also spread to Sudan's western Darfur region, where the RSF began as the Janjaweed militia, which was formed by former authoritarian president Omar al-Bashir from Arab tribal militias working alongside government troops in a brutal war against ethnic minority rebels.
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The non-governmental Norwegian Refugee Council issued a statement condemning the violence that has claimed more than 190 lives, including that of an NRC volunteer. The statement said dozens of settlements have been burned and destroyed as a result of the fighting.
"Families across Sudan, including those of our colleagues, are being torn apart, and having to choose between remaining trapped in the battlefield, or risking their lives to flee or reach an overcrowded hospital," said Jan Egeland, the NRC's Secretary-General.
"They are running out of everything, including water, food, electricity, fuel, and cash," Egeland continued. "We need the international community to put as much effort into secure humanitarian access, regardless of ceasefire and in providing aid to millions of people as they have in evacuating their own citizens."
Michael Atit in Khartoum; Margaret Besheer at the United Nations; Anthony LaBruto; John Tanza, Nike Ching at the State Department contributed to this story. Some information in this report came from The Associated
