SAF-RSF pledge to open Adré Sudan-Chad border crossing, Geneva delegates ‘watching developments on the ground’
A UNHCR aid convoy from Chad to Sudan on Wednesday (Photo: UNHCR)
The group of countries and organisations participating in the negotiations in Geneva between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which sent delegates to Cairo for indirect talks, have decided to remain in the Swiss city, to observe developments on the ground, especially with regard to the entry of aid through the Adré crossing at the Sudan-Chad border.
The international partners in the USA-led Geneva talks on Sudan announced on Friday that they had received guarantees from the belligerents to provide safe and unhindered humanitarian access through two key arteries – the western border crossing in Darfur at Adré and the northern Ed Debba route from Port Sudan.
They also announced that talks were continuing to make progress towards opening an access route through the Sennar junction to aid the people in southern Sudan.
They also pledged to continue to promote and integrate women’s voices into the process, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed in a video on X on Friday.
The Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group, which includes the USA, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, the African Union and the United Nations, welcomed in a joint statement on Friday the RSF acceptance of a simplified notification system to facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid, and urged the Sudanese Armed Forces to take similar measures.
According to the joint statement, the UN is expected to conduct a feasibility study on routes in Sudan that can facilitate access to aid collectively and ensure its delivery to about 20 million Sudanese at risk.
The statement called in this regard for the necessity of keeping “these routes open and safe so that we can bring aid into Darfur and begin to change the course of events to confront the famine.”
The group announced in its statement that it had obtained a commitment from the RSF to issue directives to all fighters in its ranks to refrain from violations against civilians, the use of famine or checkpoints for exploitation, and attacks on humanitarian operations and essential services such as agricultural fields, farmers and harvest-related operations. The statement confirmed the openness of the international partners group to both parties to join future rounds of talks to urgently alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese.
“In the past two weeks, we have defied the odds with a diplomatic approach that defies definition because we have a crisis that defies conscience,” the US Special Envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello told a press conference in Geneva on Friday afternoon.
Perriello added that the first focus was on three humanitarian access arteries that would together open the way for life-saving medicines, food, and services to reach 20 million people in Sudan. The first is the western entry point through Adré, the second from the north from Port Sudan via the so-called Ed Debba route, and the third is the southern access route through the Sennar junction.
In a subsequent message on X today, Perriello says: “We welcome this important announcement about the immediate resumption of lifesaving aid moving through Adre, Chad into Darfur. With hundreds of thousands facing starvation, we must make every effort to accelerate and increase delivery of aid to those who most desperately need it in Sudan.”
The US envoy’s remarks echo his response to questions in an exclusive interview with Radio Dabanga Editor-in-Chief Kamal Elsadig, last week, during which he flagged the resumption of humanitarian access to Darfur, and to open the Sudan-Chad border crossing at Adré, as “ one of the top priorities”.
Crossings opened
The SAF and RSF, warring since mid-April 2023 the SAF, agreed to open the Adré crossing. For the first time in four months. On Wednesday, aid trucks crossed the border into Darfur, on their way to areas where 500,000 women and children face famine.
The belligerents pledge also to open the Ed Debba route crossing to expand access. In parallel, we continue to negotiate actively with the parties on multiple potential routes through Sennar that would open the way for another 11 million Sudanese to receive aid.
A mechanism for implementing the Jeddah Agreement
Perriello explained that the second key focus area, for us, is the protection of civilians, consistent with the commitments to the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, signed by delegations of the belligerents in Jeddah in May last year and international humanitarian law.
The RSF agreed to a code of conduct, which will be distributed to their troops, which captures many of the basics of international humanitarian law, including the protection of women and the protections related to agriculture and harvesting. This allows us to look at how we can help the Sudanese get out of this situation and not just face the current famine.
On the implementation of the Jeddah Declaration, which the Port Sudan government is calling for, the US diplomat said that a compliance mechanism that could work to implement the Jeddah Declaration is still to be discussed with the warring parties.
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