No respite for Darfur as Sudan talks fail to bring relief

Sudan’s rival generals have returned to the negotiating table in Saudi Arabia, but the fighting shows no sign of easing as they wrestle to control the country’s second-largest city. In six months, the war of attrition between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has killed more than 9,000 people and displaced nearly six million.

Despite the carnage, neither side has managed to seize a decisive advantage.

In Khartoum, the air force has failed to dislodge the RSF, that still controls the capital’s streets while the army holds the country’s east.

Peace talks resumed in the Saudi city of Jeddah, which Riyadh and Washington said Sunday were aimed only at securing a ceasefire deal and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Saudi foreign ministry and the US State Department also added that the talks will not address broader political issues.

To break the stalemate at the exact moment negotiations restarted, the RSF claimed it had captured Nyala, the South Darfur state capital and the largest city in the massive western region of Darfur — the RSF’s traditional stronghold.

With much of Sudan’s already fragile infrastructure destroyed in the war, Nyala with an airport, railway and a key highway intersection could be essential for resupplying forces in the area.

The paramilitary force immediately announced the city and its army infantry division had fallen.

Moreover, the army responded that the 16th infantry division had repelled the attack and inflicted “heavy human and material losses” on the enemy.

According to residents, the RSF fighters have spread out across the city.

A resident named Adam said RSF fighters are deployed everywhere and we haven’t seen the army since Wednesday.

The two forces had held different parts of the city since the war began, and that the RSF “takeover was done in stages said by Ali who live in another district of Nyala.

After months of skirmishes, the latest stage came last week, when “the RSF attacked the 16th division with 300 armoured vehicles”, an army source told AFP.

Previous US and Saudi attempts to mediate in the war yielded only brief truces, and those were systematically violated.

It was believed that Burhan and Daglo had opted instead to wage a war of attrition, seeking to extract greater concessions at the negotiating table later.