Star Metro - UN working for ceasefire in besieged Sudan city

Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has agreed in principle to such a humanitarian pause, his ruling Transitional Council said.

But the opposing paramilitary side, led by al-Burhan's erstwhile deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, said it had received no truce proposal.

Since April 2023, the army has been at war with Daglo's Rapid Support Forces, killing tens of thousands and tearing Africa's third-largest country in two.

In the latest violence, paramilitary shelling of El-Fasher on Friday killed 13 people including three children, a medical source told AFP. Another 21 were injured.

In a telephone conversation with al-Burhan, Guterres called for a weeklong ceasefire in El-Fasher to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered to civilians, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The city has been besieged by the RSF for more than a year.

"We are making contacts with both sides with that objective," Guterres told reporters.

"We have a dramatic situation in El- Fasher," he said. "The people are starving in an extremely difficult situation, so we need to have an amount of time of truce for aid to be distributed, and you need to have it agreed with some days in advance to prepare a massive delivery in the El-Fasher."

"I have a positive answer from General Burhan, and I am hopeful that both sides will understand how vital it is to avoid the catastrophe that we are witnessing in El-Fasher," he said.

In a statement, the council that al-Burhan oversees said he had agreed to the truce proposal. But an RSF source told AFP Friday the paramilitary group had not received a ceasefire proposal.

The RSF conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur in the early months of the war, but has been unable to seize North Darfur state capital El-Fasher despite besieging the city for over a year.

The UN has repeatedly warned of civilians trapped in the city with nearly no aid allowed in, and families forced to survive by eating leaves and peanut shells.

At a Security Council meeting on Sudan on Friday, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa Martha Pobee suggested humanitarian pauses might be applied to other places in Sudan.

"We are pursuing a predictable and time-bound humanitarian pause to facilitate safe humanitarian movements into and out of areas affected by ongoing fighting, beginning with El-Fasher, and allow civilians to leave voluntarily and securely," she said.

Civilians report soaring prices and nearly all health facilities forced to shut due to fighting.

A World Food Programme facility inside El-Fasher was damaged by repeated RSF shelling last month, and in early June five aid workers were killed in an attack on a UN convoy seeking to supply the city.

The paramilitary has repeatedly attacked the city and its surrounding famine-hit displacement camps, killing hundreds of civilians and driving out hundreds of thousands of already displaced people.

W.Fortin--SMC