African Union Chief To Travel To Sudan As Fighting Spreads

The chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, will travel “immediately” to Sudan “to engage the parties towards a ceasefire”, announced Sunday the pan-African organization, on the second day of violent clashes in the country.

Expressing its “deep concern” about the situation, the AU also called on the forces of the two generals in charge of Sudan to “protect civilians”, in a statement issued after an emergency meeting of the organization’s Peace and Security Council on Sunday afternoon.

The organ in charge of conflicts and security issues within the AU “requests the Chairperson of the AU Commission to continue to use his good offices to engage with the parties to the conflict in order to facilitate dialogue and peaceful resolution of the conflict in Sudan and welcomes his commitment to travel immediately to Sudan to engage the parties towards a ceasefire.

No further details on the peace mission were immediately available.

The AU also urged the warring parties to “quickly adopt a peaceful solution and an inclusive dialogue to resolve their differences” and “firmly reject any external interference that could complicate the situation in Sudan.

Fighting continued on Sunday for the second consecutive day between the Sudanese army and a powerful paramilitary force, against the backdrop of a power struggle between the two generals in charge of Sudan since the 2021 coup, killing at least 56 civilians in 24 hours and three UN aid workers.

The army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced at 14:00 GMT and for three hours “humanitarian corridors” to evacuate the wounded, keeping on both sides a “right to retaliate in case of violation” of the agreement.

Since Saturday, air raids that shook the buildings, artillery fire, street fighting with automatic rifles or heavy machine guns have left no respite for the residents of Khartoum deprived of water and electricity.

However, the fighting is concentrated in the capital and in Darfur, in the west of the country.