The fighting continues and intensifies a little more each day on the ground. While airstrikes and explosions punctuated the day yesterday Saturday, the international community is unable to stem the violence. The United States, the UN humanitarian agency and numerous NGOs this week drew attention to what Washington called the “horrific violence” taking place in the country. And it is in this context that the eastern regional organization Igad has maintained its initiative for dialogue between the belligerents, despite the refusal of the army.
Sudan raised two objections to Igad. On the one hand, his foreign ministry said on Thursday that it refused to allow the “Quartet” of African heads of state mandated to oversee the talks to be chaired by the Kenyan head of state William Ruto. William Ruto, and Kenya in general, are indeed accused of offering facilities to the Rapid Support Forces and its leader, General Hemedti, and therefore of not being “ not neutral “. It is the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir who is preferred by the army.
And on the other hand, General al-Burhan has publicly refused to meet his former deputy and now enemy, General Hemedti. The head of the army repeats that he alone is the legitimate representative of Sudan and that his adversary is a “ rebel “.
But despite everything, Igad intends to maintain its agenda, according to several sources. A diplomat explains that what is decided by a summit can only be undone by a summit “.
The Igad Quartet currently includes Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The organization explained on Monday that it wanted “ organize, within ten days, a face-to-face meeting between al-Burhan and Hemedti in one of the regional capitals “, according to their final press release. It then provided for a humanitarian corridor within two weeks and the opening of a political process within three weeks.
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