(Reuters) -The head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces said late on Monday that his paramilitaries would immediately enter into a three-month humanitarian truce, after U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that he would intervene to seek an end to a war that has plunged the country into famine.
The United States, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – known as the Quad – earlier this month proposed a plan for a three-month truce followed by peace talks. The RSF responded by saying it had accepted the plan, but soon after attacked army territory with a barrage of drone strikes.
Monday’s statement appeared to announce a unilateral ceasefire. It came a day after Sudan’s army chief rejected the Quad’s proposals, and criticized the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates, which has been widely accused of arming the RSF, as a mediator.
The Gulf state has denied such accusations and said it aims to stop the war.
“In response to international efforts, chiefly that of His Excellency U.S. President Donald Trump … I announce a humanitarian ceasefire including a cessation of hostilities for three months,” General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the RSF said in a speech on Monday.
“We hope the Quad countries will play their role in pushing the other side to engage with this step,” he added.
His comments come at a time when the RSF has come under fire for brutal attacks on civilians in the aftermath of its takeover of the city of al-Fashir in late October. That takeover cemented its control of the Darfur region, and the force has subsequently stepped up attacks on the Kordofan region in a bid to take control of the country.
Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in his speech on Sunday accused the U.S. proposal of aiming to weaken the Sudanese army while allowing the RSF to maintain the territory it has seized.
“No one in Sudan will accept the presence of these rebels or for them to be part of any solution in the future,” Burhan said. He also denied what he said were U.S. accusations of Islamist influence in his government.
“In his rejection of the US Peace Plan for Sudan, and his repeated refusal to accept a ceasefire, he demonstrates consistently obstructive behavior,” Reem bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, UAE’s minister of state for international cooperation, said in a statement on Monday.
The war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023 over disagreements on integrating the two groups, in addition to plunging Sudan into famine, has killed tens of thousands of civilians, particularly in ethnically-based bloodshed.
The RSF has been accused of genocide, and both Dagalo and Burhan have been sanctioned by the United States.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir and Khalid Abdelaziz; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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