(Al Jazeera Media Network) The United States envoy has called for the warring parties in Sudan to accept his truce proposal without seeking preconditions.
Massad Boulos, adviser to President Donald Trump on African and Arab affairs, told a news conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday that he had presented the warring generals in Sudan with a “comprehensive” ceasefire plan, but it was accepted by neither side.
“We would like them to accept the specific text that was presented to them” in its original form, he added, in reference to the commanders of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The comments came a day after RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, had announced that his paramilitary group will adhere to an apparently unilateral “humanitarian truce” for three months.
The day before that, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Sudanese army’s commander had blasted the text put forward by the White House envoy as “the worst” proposal made since the start of the vicious civil war that erupted in April 2023.
The effective leader of the military government claimed that the plan, put forward by “the Quad” – a group of mediators that also includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates – would undermine the army while keeping the RSF in place.
Al-Burhan’s rejection reflected longstanding assertions that the UAE backs the RSF with military and financial support, which the country has repeatedly denied. In March, the UAE slammed a Sudanese move to file a case against it in the International Court of Justice, calling the charges a “cynical publicity stunt”.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president, who sat alongside Boulos on Tuesday, said his country welcomes efforts to end the war and condemns “atrocities” committed by both the army and the RSF.
Boulos said he was aware of the truce announcement by the RSF and that he hoped it would hold up.
However, weeks of vicious fighting and accusations of atrocities across the Darfur and Kordofan regions leave it unclear whether either the RSF or the army might be prepared to back down.
Last month, the RSF captured el-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in Western Darfur, strengthening its foothold in the west of Sudan.
International organisations, satellite images and witnesses have for months documented mass killings and rape around el-Fasher.
Amnesty International was the latest to raise the alarm, warning in a report released earlier on Tuesday that RSF fighters have been committing war crimes in el-Fasher.
The NGO’s secretary-general struck out at the UAE for allegedly backing the paramilitary force.
“These atrocities were facilitated by the United Arab Emirates’ support for the RSF,” said Agnes Callamard. “The UAE’s ongoing backing of the RSF is fuelling the relentless cycle of violence against civilians in Sudan.”
Later on Tuesday, the Sudan Doctors Network NGO reported that the RSF and South Sudan’s SPLM had attacked the al-Zallataya Mine in South Kordofan and abducted more than 150 men and children.
The organisation condemned the “heinous crime” and said it marks the first “blatant violation” of the RSF’s alleged humanitarian truce.
It said the militias took the young men and children in order to recruit them as future fighters, in what constitutes a war crime and a violation of international humanitarian law.
