Sudan: Armed Forces to extend ceasefire for another 72 hours

KHARTOUM: Trilateral Mechanism the Quad on Sudan released a joint statement on Sudan welcoming the announcement by the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to extend the current ceasefire for an additional 72 hours. Trilateral Mechanism, which includes the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the United Nations, and the Quad including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have released a joint statement in which they have welcomed the announcement of 72-hour ceasefire and called for its full implementation.

"Members of the Trilateral Mechanism and the Quad welcome the announcement by the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to extend the current ceasefire for an additional 72 hours and call for its full implementation," the joint statement released by the US Department of State read. "We also welcome their readiness to engage in dialogue toward establishing a more durable cessation of hostilities and ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access. This initial phase of diplomacy to establish a process to achieve a permanent cessation of hostilities and humanitarian arrangements will contribute to action on the development of a de-escalation plan as outlined in the April 20 African Union communique, which was endorsed by the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Troika, and other bilateral partners," the statement read further.

The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to extend their ceasefire amid ongoing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western Darfur region. In the final hours of the repeatedly broken three-day truce, due to end at midnight (22:00 GMT) on Thursday, the army said it would extend the ceasefire "for an additional 72 hours" following mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States, Al Jazeera wrote.

The RSF also said it approved the extended truce, adding that the proposal came from two diplomatic groupings that include the US, Saudi Arabia, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The previous ceasefire has not stopped the fighting but created enough of a space for hundreds of common people to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate hundreds of their citizens by land and sea.

However, taking advantage of the ceasefire, India has so far evacuated eight batches of stranded Indians who are being brought to India via Jeddah. Together, the army and the RSF toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup but are now locked in a power struggle that has derailed an internationally-backed transition to democracy and is threatening to destabilise a fragile region.

The army claims it controls most of Sudan's regions and is defeating a large RSF deployment in Khartoum, where some residential areas have turned into war zones.