The Sudanese army abstained yesterday Monday in Addis Ababa from the peace talks proposed by the Organization of East African Nations to end the war that has raged for almost three months in Sudan, where hostilities continued unabated.

The relentless power struggle between the armed forces of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state after the 2021 coup, and the Rapid Support Forces (RAF) paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the deputy head of the military junta that became the former’s sworn enemy, they have claimed the lives of more than 3,300 people, according to the latest estimate by the non-governmental organization ACLED, while uprooting some 3 million others, turning them into internally displaced persons and refugees, according to the UN.

The death toll of the war that broke out on April 15 is without a doubt greatly underestimated, as it is impossible to count corpses lying in areas impassable due to the fighting.

As no diplomatic effort to date has brought more than a few hours of ceasefire – without exception the two sides’ cease-fire agreements have been violated – Sudan has now, according to the UN, reached “the brink of full-scale civil war with potentially destabilizing consequences for the whole area”.

The key stakeholders, however, long sidelined by US and Saudi mediation initiatives, the countries of East Africa, are now trying to intervene.

But the IGAD “quartet”, consisting of Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and South Sudan, is headed by Kenyan President William Ruto, whose “bias” the Sudanese military regime denounces.

“Our delegation has indeed arrived in Addis Ababa [χθες] Monday morning (…) but was informed that the chairmanship of the group of four was not replaced,” as General Burhan’s government had demanded, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

“Occupation”

In its final communique, the quartet lamented “the regrettable absence of the delegation of the Sudanese armed forces, although they had been invited and had confirmed their participation.”

General Daglo, the leader of the DTY, sent on behalf of his political adviser to Addis Ababa.

The DTY denounced the “irresponsible behavior” of the army in a statement.

The quartet nevertheless assured that it continues to “mobilize” and “concentrates its efforts (…) on holding a face-to-face meeting between the two warring parties”.

He called for an “unconditional ceasefire to be signed” between the two parties.

IGAD called for a meeting of the East African Watch Force (EASF) to “consider its possible deployment” in Sudan to “protect civilians and guarantee humanitarian access”.

The ADF is one of the five regional components of the African Union Force (AUF), a peacekeeping force of the African Union, which, however, actually faces several challenges from an operational point of view.

Mubarak Ardol, a Sudanese former rebel who has now sided with the military, denounced a “plan to impose an occupation of Sudan” at the summit “intended to promote military intervention” and congratulated the military for boycotting the peace talks.

“foreign intervention”

Molly Fee, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, has been in Addis Ababa since yesterday and today plans to hold meetings with regional and Sudanese officials.

In a statement made public yesterday Sunday, he emphasized that he calls on the warring parties in Sudan to “immediately stop the fighting”.

He also stated that he reiterated “the appeal to the countries of the region to prevent any foreign intervention and military support that would worsen or prolong the conflict.”

As experts point out, both camps have foreign supporters: neighboring Egypt supports the armed forces; the United Arab Emirates and mercenaries of the Russian private military company Wagner are on the side of the DTY.

In the field, residents told AFP that fighting was still raging yesterday and airstrikes were being launched in districts of Khartoum. “Rockets hit civilian homes,” complained one.

Fighting was also taking place in El Obeid, 350 kilometers south of the capital Khartoum, according to eyewitnesses.

An AFP source in the Sudanese military said regular forces had “repelled an attack” by a group of “rebels” in Blue Nile state, which neighbors Ethiopia.

On Saturday, dozens of civilians were killed and injured in a northwestern suburb of Khartoum due to aerial bombardment attributed to the armed forces. The shelling, in the Dar es Salaam district of the Omdurman suburb, killed “22 civilians” and wounded dozens more, according to the official count.