Documents seen by Reuters, the content of which was confirmed by senior officials, showed that the Sudanese army has conditioned the full withdrawal of the Rapid Support Forces from all cities it has controlled since May 11, 2023, as a prerequisite for accepting a US proposal put forward last month to end the war that has been going on for more than three years.
The U.S. proposal calls for an immediate 90-day humanitarian truce , paving the way for the negotiation of a permanent ceasefire, the formation of a unified national army, and a peaceful civilian-led transition toward elections. According to the documents, the Sudanese government agreed to most of the terms but objected to the "limited withdrawal" clause, which prioritizes North Darfur and North Kordofan with a UN-supervised mechanism, adhering to a comprehensive withdrawal, which has been a recurring obstacle in previous peace efforts.
On the other hand, the US president's adviser for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, announced on social media that the head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had accepted the latest peace proposal rather than rejected it.
Field Developments in Karmak
On the ground level, the Sudanese army announced the recapture and extension of its full control over the strategic city of Kurmak in the Blue Nile region in the southeast of the country, after fierce battles fought against the alliance of the Rapid Support Forces and the Popular Movement-North, which resulted in heavy losses in lives and equipment on the other side.
The announcement came 106 days after the coalition took control of the city, which is of great logistical and military importance due to its location adjacent to the common borders with Ethiopia and South Sudan, and served as the main crossing point for supply lines.
Military observers pointed out that the recapture of the city aborts the "pull-in" plan aimed at exhausting the army, and has direct repercussions on the axes of operations in the regions of Kordofan and Darfur.
Hacking the ICC
In the context of international accountability, the ICC announced a "breakthrough" in investigations related to crimes committed in the Darfur region, with the court's deputy prosecutor, Nuzhat Shamim Khan, confirming in an interview with Reuters following a visit to eastern Chad that additional and strong evidence known as "linking evidence" that links abuses to political and military leadership levels directly from the basis of documents, records and testimonies of survivors.
The court is focusing its investigations on the violent attacks on the RSF-controlled cities of El Geneina and El Fasher.
Khan said the RSF refuses to cooperate with the court despite denying targeting civilians, while the military-led Sudanese government has cooperated in recent investigations while continuing to refuse to extradite former senior officials wanted under a 2005 UN Security Council mandate.
These developments come amid a sharp deterioration in the humanitarian situation, as the war that has erupted since April 2023 has left tens of thousands dead and about thirteen million displaced, with the International Organization for Migration monitoring the displacement of more than one hundred and thirty thousand people from the cities of Kordofan region alone since the escalation of fighting last October, in a crisis that the United Nations classifies as the worst in the world in terms of the size of humanitarian needs.
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