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GENEVA —Efforts to achieve humanitarian access to millions of desperately needy Sudanese are moving forward but cease-fire negotiations remain dormant because the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) still refuse to send a delegation to the U.S.-sponsored peace talks, a U.S. official says.
U.S. special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello told journalists at a briefing Monday in Geneva that given the urgency of the Sudan crisis, delegations from the United Nations, African Union, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been working "through the night" on issues related to humanitarian assistance and civilian protection.
Perriello said this work is paying off in that Sudan's military has agreed to open the Adre border crossing with Chad to allow food and other relief supplies to enter conflict-rattled Darfur.
"Along with many, many humanitarian and diplomatic colleagues around the world, we are now on the precipice of Adre being open with over 100 trucks ready to roll as early as tomorrow on something that would often take weeks and weeks, if not months," he said. "And that means that we can be seeing food and medicine reaching areas like Zamzam camp, where well over 400,000 people have been facing starvation and famine."
Though only the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have turned up at the talks, Perriello said that active negotiations have been going on with both warring parties since the talks began August 14.
"We have worked virtually through phones with the army to accelerate progress that save lives of the Sudanese," he said, adding that "if the army delegation were here, I guarantee we would be producing more results for the Sudanese people on humanitarian access and on civilian protection than we can do by phone."
He said the talks are prioritizing the opening of humanitarian corridors on three roads - the Adre border crossing, Dabar Road and the opening of Sennar junction and Sennar State. This, he said "collectively would ensure that 20 million people who currently are cut off completely or largely from food and medicine would be able to get that relief."
Taylor Garrett, who heads the Sudan rapid support team for the U.S. government, said, "Those routes will open up assistance to reach really the heartland of the crisis to greater Kordofan, Greater Darfur, White Nile, Blue Nile and Sennar.
"Another point that we have made clear is the need for both sides to allow assistance to flow to areas controlled by the other side, as it moves through their territory. So, regardless of territorial control, the assistance has to reach people," he said.
"We will continue to move forward on the results that matter and we hope that everyone, including the army would see that this is something that the Sudanese people will respond to very positively," Garrett said.
Since rival generals of the SAF and RSF plunged Sudan into war 16 months ago on April 15, 2023, the Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, estimates more than 18,800 people have been killed and another 33,000 injured.
It reports more than 10.7 million people are displaced inside Sudan, another 2 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and about 25.6 million people, more than half of Sudan's population, face acute hunger, including more than 755,000 people on the brink of famine.
"We are in a crisis of epic proportions," Perriello said. "The sooner the parties engage in full mediation for the cessation of hostilities, the better it will be for everybody in Sudan. But, we will continue to work for those protections that have to be respected even in wartime under both international law and the Jeddah declarations.
The Jeddah declaration is an agreement signed by both the SAF and RSF last year, reaffirming both group's core obligations under International Humanitarian Law to facilitate humanitarian action to meet the needs of civilians.
"That is what we are going to continue working on," Perriello said, adding that this current first round of peace talks will continue for a few more days.