(Khartoum) Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhane refuses to sit at the same table as his rival Mohammed Hamdane Daglo, a Sudanese official claimed on Tuesday after a regional bloc raised the possibility of a meeting between these warring generals.
Fighting has been raging in Sudan since mid-April between the army commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti”.
Mediation efforts so far to end the clashes have not been successful, as the numerous truces have hardly ever been enforced.
“Under the current circumstances, Burhane will not sit at the same table as Hemedti,” a Sudanese official said on condition of anonymity.
He was referring to the mediation proposal of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the East African regional bloc.
At a summit on Monday in Djibouti, Igad announced that Kenya would chair a quartet comprising Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan to try to resolve the conflict in Sudan.
And according to a draft summit communiqué issued by the Kenyan presidency, the leaders of the quartet will try to organize a “face-to-face meeting” between the two generals “in one of the regional capitals”.
Until now, the Igad Committee on Sudan, which did not include Ethiopia, was headed by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, a historic mediator in Sudan.
However, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates in a press release published on Tuesday “to demand” that President Kiir remain at the head of the committee.
Fighting continued to rage Tuesday in Khartoum where artillery pounded the north of the capital and its suburbs, witnesses told AFP.
The fighting left more than 1,800 dead according to the NGO Acled and two million displaced, according to the UN.
Many truces announced so far have been mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia.