UNITED NATIONS, April 26. /TASS/. The conflict in Sudan cannot be resolved on the battlefield, so the sides should establish a permanent ceasefire, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a UN Security Council meeting on the issue.
"The parties to the conflict must respect the 72-hour ceasefire brokered by the United States and come together to establish a permanent cessation of hostilities," he said.
"The fighting must stop immediately. We need an all-out effort for peace," the UN chief continued. "I call on the parties to the conflict, Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo ‘Hemedti,’ and the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, to silence the guns. It is incumbent on Sudanese leaders to put the interests of their people front and centre."
The leadership of the UN mission in Sudan will remain in the country to provide aid to its residents, Guterres told.
"The UN’s leadership in Sudan, headed by my Special Representative Volker Perthes, remains in the country," he said. "We are establishing a hub in Port Sudan to enable us to continue to work with our partners in support of peace and to alleviate humanitarian suffering."
Earlier, Guterres said the UN reconfigured its mission in Sudan, taking hundreds of UN staffers and their family members to safe places.
The situation in Sudan escalated amid disagreements between the army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who also heads the ruling Sovereignty Council, and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), who is al-Burhan’s deputy on the council.
The main points of contention between the two military organizations are related to the timeline and methods of forming a unified armed forces of Sudan, as well as who should become the commander-in-chief of the army: a career military officer, which is the option supported by al-Burhan, or an elected civilian president, as Dagalo insists.
On April 15, clashes between the two structures erupted near a military base in Merowe and in the capital, Khartoum and continued on Tuesday despite an earlier ceasefire. According to the country’s health ministry, more than 600 people have been killed in the country since the conflict broke out. In turn, the World Health Organization reported that the conflict had claimed about 450 lives, over 4,000 people were injured.