The U.N. refugee agency said Friday that 200,000 people have now fled the violence in Sudan, with 60,000 total having fled to neighboring Chad.
At a news briefing in Geneva, U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Olga Sarrado said 30,000 have crossed into Chad in just the past several days, with more people crossing borders daily.
Along with this, she noted that 700,000 people are displaced within Sudan, as reported Tuesday by the International Organization for Migration, or IOM.
The news comes the day after Sudan's warring parties signed a commitment establishing guidelines for allowing humanitarian assistance into the country.
However, a U.S. official involved in the talks noted the commitment did not include a cease-fire.
Addressing Friday’s news briefing via video link, the U.N. Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes said he expected talks on a cease-fire to continue Friday or Saturday. He said the most important part of the agreement was that the two sides committed to continue the talks.
Perthes said both sides have ignored every cease-fire agreement signed during the four weeks since the conflict began because both believe they can win, and they are trying to improve their positions.
Also speaking at the news conference, U.N. Children’s Fund Spokesman James Elder said a factory in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, which produces therapeutic food for children suffering from the most dangerous form of malnutrition, has been burned down.
He said the fire destroyed 14,500 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food – enough to provide life-saving treatment for the same number of children for six to eight weeks.
He called it, “the darkest, most distinct illustration to date of how this conflict is threatening the lives of children through multiple means."
Humanitarian aid agreement
The agreement signed late Thursday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by representatives of Sudan’s army and the rival Rapid Support Forces is intended to ensure the protection of civilians, including “allowing safe passage for civilians to leave areas of active hostilities on a voluntary basis, in the direction they choose.”
The agreement requires both sides to permit humanitarian assistance, to allow the restoration of electricity, water and other basic services, to withdraw security forces from hospitals and to arrange for “respectful burial” of the dead.
The U.S. official involved in the talks said "We are hopeful, cautiously, that their willingness to sign this document will create some momentum that will force them to create the space" to bring in relief supplies, the U.S. official said. Still, the two sides remain "quite far apart,”
Earlier on Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council barely managed to pass a motion to increase monitoring of human rights abuses in Sudan, where hundreds of civilians have been killed since the conflict began last month.
Backed by the United Kingdom and the United States, the motion passed with 18 in favor and 15 against.
The initiative grants the U.N.'s Sudan expert more powers to monitor abuses, among other measures. It was watered down several times in recent days to gain approval.
No African country voted in favor of the initiative. Sudanese Ambassador Hassan Hamid Hassan said the conflict was internal and reiterated the refrain of "African solutions for African problems."
Earlier Thursday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk urged countries with influence in Africa to encourage Sudan’s warring sides to end the fighting.
Addressing an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Türk said the conflict has pushed “this much-suffering country into catastrophe.”
"I condemn the use of violence by individuals who have no regard for the lives and fundamental rights of millions of their own compatriots," he said.
The Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, struck targets in Khartoum and its two sister cities, Omdurman and Bahri, on Thursday. The army is trying to dislodge the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by General Mohamed Hamdam Dagalo, which have dug into residential areas they have held since fighting began.
Russia’s Wagner Group Could Fuel Conflict in Sudan, Experts Say
In recent weeks, there have been concerns — voiced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken among others — that Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is involved in the conflict.
Wagner’s head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Thursday the paramilitary group is not operating in Sudan and has not been involved in politics there since Omar al-Bashir was deposed by army officers in a 2019 uprising, according to Reuters.
"Wagner is not in Sudan," Prigozhin said in an audio clip posted on Telegram. "Wagner never got involved in the domestic political affairs in Sudan after the departure of Omar al-Bashir."
Regardless of whether Wagner is involved, the conflict is only getting worse.
According to the World Health Organization, the conflict has left more than 600 people dead and more than 5,000 others injured.
Generals Burhan and Dagalo are former allies who together orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed a transition to civilian rule following the 2019 ouster of Bashir.
Tensions between the generals have been growing over disagreements about how the RSF should be integrated in the army and who should oversee that process. The restructuring of the military was part of an effort to restore the country to civilian rule and end the political crisis sparked by the 2021 military coup.