Representatives have arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah to resume talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudanese government sources told Reuters on Saturday, after three months of fighting between the army and RSF.
Previous talks in Jeddah facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States were suspended by both countries in early June after numerous ceasefire violations. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have yet to confirm the resumption of talks between Sudan’s warring factions.
Separately, a mediation attempt launched by Egypt began on Thursday, an effort welcomed both by the Sudanese army, which has close ties to Egypt, and the RSF.
A series of ceasefires have failed to halt the fighting which broke out on April 15 as the army and RSF vied for power. The conflict has seen more than 3 million people uprooted, including more than 700,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries.
There were new clashes on Saturday in both Omdurman and Bahri, Khartoum’s adjoining cities that make up the wider capital, witnesses said.
At least four civilians were killed and four injured in a drone strike that targeted a hospital in the city of Omdurman, Sudan’s health ministry said, accusing the RSF of carrying out the attack.
Sudan’s army put the death toll from the strike on the Medical Corps Hospital at five.
Also on Saturday, the RSF issued a statement denying the findings of a Human Rights Watch report which found that Arab militias and RSF forces had killed dozens of civilians in a single day in the West Darfur town of Misterei in May.
The raid was one of a wave of ethnically charged attacks that have spread in Darfur since the outbreak of fighting in Khartoum.
The RSF said the violence in Misterei and in the nearby city of El Geneina was “purely tribal” and that they were not a party to it. It said its forces had been withdrawn from Misterei to El Geneina at the time of the May 28 killings.
Multiple witnesses and activists have reported RSF involvement in perpetrating violence in El Geneina and elsewhere in Darfur.
