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PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s defense minister said on Tuesday that the army would press on with fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after the country’s security and defense council met to discuss a US proposal for a ceasefire.
“We thank the Trump administration for its efforts and proposals to achieve peace,” Hassan Kabroun said in a speech broadcast on state television, adding that “preparations for the Sudanese people’s battle are ongoing.”
“Our preparations for war are a legitimate national right,” he said, following the council meeting in Khartoum.
No details of the US truce proposal have been made public.
The war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more over the past two years, has spread to new areas of Sudan in recent days, sparking fears of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
After mediating in other conflicts in Africa and the Middle East in recent months, the US administration under Donald Trump is now pushing for a ceasefire in Sudan.
The army-aligned authorities had rejected an earlier truce proposal under which both they and the paramilitaries they are fighting would be excluded from a transitional political process.
The latest discussions follow an escalation on the ground, with the paramilitary RSF appearing to prepare an assault on the central Kordofan region after it captured El-Fasher, the last army stronghold in the vast Darfur region.
People forced to flee El-Fasher have described to AFP intimidation and violence from the RSF.
Mohamed Abdullah, 56, told AFP he was stopped by RSF fighters while fleeing El-Fasher on Saturday, just hours before its fall.
“They demanded our phones, money, everything. They kept searching us thoroughly,” he said of the RSF.
On his way to Tawila, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the west, he saw “a body left on the street that looked like it had been eaten by a dog.”
Trump’s envoy to Africa, Massad Boulos, held talks in Sudan’s neighbor Egypt on Sunday with Cairo’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and then on Monday with the Arab League.
During the discussions, Abdelatty stressed “the importance of concerted efforts to reach a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire throughout Sudan, paving the way for a comprehensive political process in the country,” according to a foreign ministry statement.
According to the Arab League, Boulos met the regional body’s chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and briefed him on recent US efforts in Sudan to “halt the war, expedite aid delivery and initiate a political process.”