World leaders meet to revive Sudan peace efforts

An attempt by Western governments to push for peace in Sudan, devastated by two years of civil war, has already stirred controversy as the two warring parties have been left out of the discussions and some of the participants are considered mere 'stakeholders' with their own agendas, notes Legalbrief. The British Government is bringing together Foreign Ministers from nearly 20 countries and organisations in a bid to establish a group that can drive the warring factions in Sudan closer towards peace, The Guardian reports. The conference at Lancaster House in London tomorrow, which follows previous failed attempts at peace talks, comes on the second anniversary of the start of a civil war that has led to the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, but has been persistently left at the bottom of the global list of diplomatic priorities. Half of Sudan’s population are judged to be desperately short of food, with 11m people internally displaced. The initiative holds risks for the UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, since it may require him to place pressure on some of the UK’s Middle Eastern allies to make good on their promises no longer to arm the warring parties. The UK along with Germany and France, which are co-hosting the conference, have not invited to London the two warring parties, the Sudanese Armed Forces or the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has attacked non-Arabic groups in Darfur. The two sides are judged to be a long way from seeking peace and it is thought diplomatic energy is best placed on securing a consensus among rival external backers that a ceasefire must be demanded and impunity for war crimes will end.

Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Ali Youssef, has written to Lammy to protest against his exclusion. The Guardian report says Youssef also criticised invitations to the conference for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Chad and Kenya, which he termed are ‘stakeholders in the war’. Sudan’s Government has accused the UAE, a close UK ally, of complicity in genocide by covertly arming the RSF, headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti. The Sudanese Government, itself backed by another UK ally Saudi Arabia as well as Egypt, has also been accused of war crimes. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF have formally been accused by the UN of using starvation as a weapon of war. A harsh spotlight is also very likely to fall in London on the impact of USAID cuts on the provision of humanitarian aid in Sudan as well as the withdrawal of funding from academic groups that have been monitoring war crimes and the build-up of famine. NGOs such as Human Rights Watch are also urging the ministerial conference to emphasise the importance of civilian protection, independent of a ceasefire. At an event previewing the conference, Kate Ferguson, the co-director of the NGO Protection Approaches, said: ‘The conference comes at a critical moment for civilians in Sudan as areas of control under various armed forces rapidly evolve and civilians face an increasing spectrum of varied attack.’ Ferguson added that ‘citizens were facing an unimaginable triple threat of armed conflict, identity-based atrocity crimes and humanitarian catastrophe’.

The US and Saudi Arabia also last week called on the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces to resume peace talks in the country's conflict, the State Department said following a meeting in Washington between the two countries' top diplomats, reports France24. Saudi Arabia's top diplomat held talks in Washington on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a visit by US President Donald Trump, which would be the first foreign trip of his second term. Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department, and the two called on the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces to resume peace talks. The diplomats ‘agreed that the Sudanese Armed Forces and RSF must return to peace talks, protect civilians, open humanitarian corridors, and return to civilian governance' the State Department statement said following the meeting. The call came after the Sudanese army said last week it had retaken full control of the capital Khartoum after weeks of attacks by the paramilitaries. The RSF has been battling the army since April 2023, and the war has created what the UN describes as the world's worst hunger and displacement crises. The US under Joe Biden and the Saudis have previously sponsored several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations to end the bloody conflict.

Devastating attacks on a camp hosting hundreds of thousands of people who had fled Sudan's civil war continued for a third day, residents told BBC News. One person in the Zamzam camp described the situation as ‘extremely catastrophic’ while another said things were ‘dire’. More than 100 civilians, among them at least 20 children and a medical team, have been killed in a series of assaults that began late last week in Sudan's western Darfur region, the UN has said. The attacks – on the city of el-Fasher and two nearby camps – have been blamed on the RSF. It has said reports of atrocities were fabricated. The camps, Zamzam and Abu Shouk, provide temporary homes to more than 700 000 people, many of whom are facing famine-like conditions. News of the attacks comes on the eve of the second anniversary of the start of the civil war between the RSF and the army. He added that all routes out of the camp were closed and it was ‘surrounded from all four directions’. Some camp residents have got out and made the 15km journey to el-Fasher, according to North Darfur's Health Minister Ibrahim Khater. The UN's humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said she was ‘appalled and gravely alarmed’ by reports from Darfur. The US State Department also said it was ‘deeply alarmed by reports of attacks by the RSF on Zamzam and Abu Shouk’. Aid organisation Relief International said nine of its workers ‘were mercilessly killed including doctors, referral drivers and a team leader’ in the attack on Zamzam.

Meanwhile, Sudan told the International Court of Justice last Thursday that the UAE was violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in Darfur, but the UAE argued the case should be thrown out as the court lacked jurisdiction, reports News24. Sudan asked the judges to issue emergency preventative orders in the case, focused on intense ethnic-based attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied Arab militias against the non-Arab Masalit tribe in 2023 in West Darfur, documented in detail by Reuters. ‘The genocide against the Masalit is being carried out by the Rapid Support Force, believed to be Arab from Darfur, with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates,’ Sudan's Acting Justice Minister, Muawia Osman, told the United Nations' top court. The UAE has repeatedly dismissed the filing of the case as a political game and have argued the ICJ, also known as the World Court, has no legal power to hear Sudan's claim and asked judges to throw out the case. ‘It is clear beyond doubt that there is no jurisdiction. We therefore call upon the court to remove the case from the general list,’ Reem Ketait, a top official at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the court. Sudan accuses the UAE of arming the RSF which have been fighting the Sudanese army in a two-year-old civil war, a charge the UAE denies but which UN experts and US lawmakers have found credible. ‘Since the start of the war, the UAE has not provided any arms or related materiel to either of the warring parties,’ Ketait told judges on Thursday. Attacks against the Masalit were determined to be genocide by the US in January.

Kenya has yet again sparked another diplomatic spat with Sudan after reports emerged that it was planning to host the RSF and its affiliates in Nairobi for a second conference, reports People Daily. Sudan, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has raised concerns over the reports, faulting Kenya for the move amid RSF’s ongoing attacks on the Zamzam camp, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, including women and children. In a statement issued through social media on Sunday, Sudan said that it was aware of the reports that Kenya will host a second conference for the RSF and its affiliates in the coming days. Sudan expressed concerns that the upcoming conference follows previous meetings sponsored by the Kenyan Presidency in February 2025, which sought to declare a parallel government for the RSF and its affiliates. Sudan further faulted Kenya for planning to host such a meeting despite the entire international community condemning the first conference that was hosted at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre. Sudan warned that Kenya’s continued support of RSF demonstrates a disregard for international legitimacy and the African Union Peace and Security Council. According to Sudan, the move also poses a serious threat to regional security, the sovereignty of African nations, and social stability within them. The neighbouring country has now called on the international community to condemn what it has termed as irresponsible conduct, which it says violates international law, the UN Charter, and the Constitutive Act of the African Union.