UN chief says 'we failed' to stop Sudan war as clashes break truce

KHARTOUM, Sudan — The UN chief on Wednesday said "we failed" to stop war from erupting in Sudan, where persistent fighting between rival generals undermined efforts to firm up a truce.

"The UN was taken by surprise" by the conflict, because the world body and others were hopeful that negotiations towards a civilian transition would be successful, Antonio Guterres told reporters in Nairobi.

"To the extent that we and many others were not expecting this to happen, we can say we failed to avoid it to happen," the secretary general said. 

"A country like Sudan, that has suffered so much... cannot afford a struggle for power between two people." 

Deadly urban combat broke out on April 15 between Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who commands the regular army, and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

At least 550 people have been killed and 4,926 wounded, according to the latest health ministry figures, which are likely incomplete.

Since the fall of strongman Omar al-Bashir in 2019, international mediators have sought to bring civilians and the military to the negotiating table.

But in the process, analysts believe, they gave too much credit to Burhan and Daglo, who worked together in a 2021 coup that derailed the post-Bashir democratic transition.

The two generals later fell out in a power struggle.

Sudan expert Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, writing for the Atlantic Council, said international and regional leaders must "begin to strategically apply pressure" by freezing bank accounts and blocking business activities of Sudanese leaders and their forces.

'Heartbreaking'

Guterres spoke on the same day his top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, was in Sudan, after neighbouring South Sudan announced on Tuesday that the warring sides had agreed "in principle" to a seven-day ceasefire from May 4.

In a statement early Thursday, the army said it had "accepted" this proposed ceasefire extension, while calling for "an African solution to the problems of the continent".

But my midnight Wednesday, the RSF had not commented on the ceasefire and the army stressed in its statement that all its commitments were conditional on "respect for the truce" by the other side.

Griffiths arrived in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan — so far untouched by the fighting — on an urgent mission to find ways to bring relief to the millions of Sudanese unable to escape.

He called for security guarantees "at the highest level" to ensure desperately needed aid deliveries to war-ravaged parts of the country.