CAIRO (AP) — The United States on Friday called on Sudan’s military to join talks aimed at calming the country’s grinding conflict as the African country faces a worsening humanitarian crisis.
The military has boycotted the negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, now in their third day, despite international pleas that it take part in the talks. Sudan’s military is battling the powerful paramilitary, known as Rapid Support Forces.
“The RSF remains here ready for talks to start; SAF needs to decide to come,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posted on X on Friday, using the acronym for Sudan’s Armed Forces.
Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations were at the talks, which started earlier this week. Sudan’s paramilitary sent a delegation to Geneva.
On Thursday, Sudan’s governing council, which is led by top military generals, announced that they had opened the key border crossing of Adre, from neighboring Chad into Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur, which has been worst-hit by fighting and displacement.
The announcement was welcomed by the U.N. and the U.S., but it remained unclear how it will affect aid delivery on the ground, where heavy flooding has also impeded access in recent weeks.
Both sides have traded accusations of attacking civilians and obstructing aid since the country’s war started in April 2023. The northeastern African nation plunged into chaos last year when tensions between the military and the RSF turned into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading across the country.
The Geneva-led talks come as more people face severe hunger and displacement, and civilians death mount.
On Thursday, UNESCO said that a bomb detonated at a school and market in the city of El Obeid the previous day, killing five girls and injuring 20 other children.
Aid workers say the situation has grown even more dire for Sudanese civilians in Darfur, many of whom are facing worsening hunger and malnutrition.
Tammam Aloudat, president of the Netherlands board of Doctors without Borders, or MSF, returned from a mission in Niyala, South Darfur this week. He told The Associated Press that he saw a large number of children at the group’s hospital who were so malnourished that they had stopped eating and needed medical interventions, and saw those whose growth had been severely stunted by hunger.
“We have directly seen severe pockets of severe malnutrition,” he said. Infants whose age was more than a year old appeared to be no more than four or five months old.
“They can’t walk, they are severely malnourished,” he said.
Aloudat said he hopes the announcement of the reopening of the border crossing will mean more U.N. aid can reach hard-hit areas, but that many obstacles remain.
“Meaningful humanitarian access can be measured when the millions of people in need of assistance and protection start to receive it, not when decisions are simply announced,” he said.
The conflict has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation. The atrocities include mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.
Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries.
Last month, global experts confirmed that starvation at a massive camp for displaced people in Darfur has grown into famine. And about 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger, the experts from the Famine Review Committee warned.
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