The fast-worsening humanitarian situation in Sudan is not the only concern for the AU and the wider international community, rather, of equal concern is the grave threat that the continuation of the war poses to regional and international peace and security. Despite the fact that neither the SAF nor the RSF stand a chance to achieve military victory, there is no sign of the war coming to an end. Weapons and funds channelled from those backing the two sides have continued to fuel the raging fire of the brutal war. As a result, there are growing concerns that the persistence of the war could precipitate the fragmentation and/or collapse of Sudan. In her briefing to the UN Security Council on 18 June, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Martha Pobee, warned that ‘Without swift action, Sudan risks becoming engulfed in more ethnic violence and fragment even further.’

With many conflict-affected neighbouring states, Sudan’s fragmentation (Libya scenario) or collapse (Somalia scenario) is sure to have a knock-on effect on these countries, for some with dire consequences. Considering Sudan’s location, its collapse is also sure to reverberate across parts of Lake Chad, Great Lakes, North Africa and the Horn of Africa regions. As the experience of Somalia also showed, the consequences of Sudan’s fragmentation or collapse are unlikely to be confined inland. It is inevitable to spill over into the Red Sea, with grave consequences to international maritime trade and economic stability. The vacuum that the deterioration of the situation in Sudan creates may end up attracting terrorist networks from the Sahel and Horn of Africa as well as from beyond Africa.

The expected outcome is a communiqué. The PSC is expected to express its grave concern over the escalating violence in and around North Darfur and other regions of Sudan, as well as the dire humanitarian situation in the country. The PSC may welcome the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2736 and reiterate its call for the RSF to lift the siege of El Fasher and immediately halt the fighting in and around the city. It may particularly express its concern over the worrying trend of grave human rights violations by the warring parties, who are disregarding international human rights and humanitarian laws. The PSC may strongly condemn the recent killings of civilians in Wad al Nourah, Gezira State, echoing the statement from the AU Commission Chairperson on 7 June 2024. In this regard, it may follow up on its previous decisions adopted at its 1213^th session to address the escalation of atrocities and hold perpetrators accountable. Other measures that the PSC may take include the establishment of a) internationally monitored humanitarian corridors for preventing further humanitarian catastrophe b) a mechanism for monitoring, documenting and reporting on compliance with international humanitarian law c) disengagement from hostilities in major civilian population centres supervised by a joint monitoring mechanism of the AU, IGAD and LAS supported by the UN, and d) heads of state and government level ad hoc Committee to mobilize and leverage the collective weight of AU member states for bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. The PSC may also urge the warring parties to immediately and unconditionally return to the expanded Jeddah platform.

Tomorrow (April 18), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1209^th session on the situation in Sudan.

The session will commence with an opening statement by Jainaba Jange, Permanent Representative of the Republic of The Gambia to the AU and stand-in Chairperson of the PSC for the month. This is followed by introductory remarks from Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS). It is envisaged that Mohammed Ibn Chambas, AU High Representative for Silencing the Guns and Chair of the AU High Level Panel on Sudan will deliver the briefing. Additionally, representatives of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Ramtane Lamamra, Personal Envoy of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General for Sudan are also expected to make statements.

Indicating lack of sustained engagement on the part of the PSC, the last substantive PSC convening was in November 2023 during which the PSC decided on the establishment of an ad hoc High-Level Panel on Sudan, after months of calls for such a standing mechanism dedicated to the Sudan file on a fulltime basis. In line with the Communique of the 1185^th meeting of the PSC, the AU Commission Chairperson finally acted on the PSC decision with the appointment of the High-Level Panel comprising of Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, chair of the Panel and  Dr Specioza Wandira-Kazibwe, Former Vice President of the Republic of Uganda and Ambassador Fransisco Madeira, Former Special Representative of the Chairperson to Somalia and Head of AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).

It is anticipated that tomorrow’s session will focus on three major issues. The first one concerns the current state of the conflict situation in Sudan. The second area relates to the current state of the various initiatives for the resolution of the conflict. This would cover activities undertaken by the AU Ad Hoc Panel. Considering the grave humanitarian situation that the war has induced, the third area that warrants PSC’s attention in tomorrow’s meeting would be the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan and ways to mitigate this crisis including the role that the AU brings to bear in this respect.

A year into the outbreak of the war, there is no indication of any slowing down of the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Between 26 October and 4 November 2023, RSF and its allied forces gained ground, claiming to seize control of South Darfur capital Nyala (the second largest city), Central Darfur capital Zalingei, and El Geneina of West Darfur. During the last quarter of the year, the war expanded beyond Khartoum, Darfur and South Kordofan as RSF marched on Wad Medani, Gezira state, launched new offensive on South Kordofan and initiated fighting in Gedaref and the White Nile regions.

Highlighting that the two sides are locked down in a battle for dominance and to resolve their contest through fighting, as RSF’s campaign expands its territorial reach, particularly into Eastern Sudan lost momentum, the SAF has since January been on a counteroffensive in an attempt to regain lost territories in Omdurman and Gezira. Relying significantly on its airpower bolstered by combat drones, reportedly supplied by Iran, the SAF’s counter-offensive delivered some success as it recaptured territories in Omdurman.

Indications of further worsening of the security situation, with risks of more actors joining the fighting, are also notable. In Darfur, the situation is getting worse as non-Arab armed groups aligned with SAF are facing off against the RSF for dangerous fighting, involving acts of mass atrocities by the RSF. There is also the mobilization of militias on the side of SAF in eastern Sudan and River Nile, Northern and Kassala states.

The AU High-Level Panel on Sudan commenced its work two weeks after the appointment. Since their appointment, the members of the Panel have engaged with other mechanisms on Sudan such as the Expanded Mechanism on the sideline of the AU Summit in February 2024 as well as the regional bloc IGAD, where the Panel reiterated its plan to push forth the implementation of the AU Roadmap for the Resolution of the conflict in Sudan and its commitment to an inclusive process that will engage all Sudanese stakeholders as well as partners.

What makes the war in Sudan destructive is not merely the fact that the two warring parties are determined to achieve their objectives through military means, with each believing that it can win the war. The actions of both the RSF and the SAF in conducting hostilities show a complete lack of regard for the rules of war, albeit to various degrees. Apart from the destruction, death, mayhem and displacement caused by the indiscriminate use of force, civilians have become a battle ground as they become direct targets of mass atrocities, rape and other forms of sexual violence particularly in RSF-held areas. Both parties to the conflict are also engaged in impeding humanitarian access.

After a year of a brutal war fought without any regard for the rules of war, Sudan is in the process of collapsing. As the UN Secretary-General warned in a briefing to the UNSC last month, this ‘could ignite regional instability of dramatic proportions, from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.’

In light of these dire security conditions, the issue of how to secure some kind of a halt to hostilities is a major pressing issue that deserves particular attention in tomorrow’s session. One option for the PSC is to try and contribute to securing the kind of internationally supported and protected humanitarian ceasefire agreement that established the ground for further peace efforts in Darfur in the early 2000s. The other option available is for the PSC to call on the UNSC to adopt a decision on the establishment of internationally protected humanitarian corridors for facilitating access to civilians. Short of these, the PSC can also take an initiative on its own focusing on the facilitation of humanitarian access by establishing a mechanism dedicated to such role through monitoring and reporting on both actions impeding humanitarian access and targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure or by assigning such responsibility to the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan.

Admittedly, any effective effort for achieving any measure of cessation of hostilities requires at the very least two conditions. The first is to achieve diplomatic consensus and align efforts of all those with influence, leverage, and interest to halt this downward spiral of the situation in Sudan. The second and based on the first condition is to ensure cessation of the flow of support to the two sides. In this respect, the PSC may also find ways of working with IGAD and the UN to secure the required measures for stopping the flow of arms and to squeeze the funding sources of these warring parties.

On the humanitarian front, Sudan now has the hallmark of being the worst conflict-induced humanitarian crisis on the continent. Tens of thousands lost their lives. In various instances, the loss of these lives was a result of mass killings. The continued fighting has left at least 8.2 million displaced. According to the World Food Program (WPF), there are approximately 25 million people in need of assistance classifying the humanitarian condition as ‘the world’s largest hunger crisis’. According to UNICEF, the war in Sudan also led to the world’s worst child displacement crisis. Despite the staggering and growing dire humanitarian situation, access to humanitarian assistance remains hugely impeded. Indicating the catastrophic trend of the worsening of the humanitarian situation, the Famine Early Warning System Network warned of an impending famine threatening parts of West Darfur, Khartoum, and the Greater Darfur region. According to the WFP, nearly five million individuals are on the brink of experiencing famine.

Significant outcomes in reducing the humanitarian crisis were seen days after the adoption of a UNSC resolution, following which the government of Sudan decided to open humanitarian corridors via four routes, namely: Tina crossing from Chad to El Fasher; Port Sudan to El Fasher via Atbara; Red Sea Road to Port Sudan via Egypt; Wadi Halfa-Dongola crossing; and Renk to Kosti via land route from South Sudan. These recent developments are also supplemented by this week’s Humanitarian Conference on Sudan held in Paris, France which saw the pledging of the reported 2 billion Euro plus an additional 900 thousand to aid the UN in providing humanitarian assistance in Sudan and neighboring countries.

Regarding the peacemaking efforts, the first of the issues that the PSC is expected to deliberate on is the work that the AU High-Level Panel has undertaken thus far and how it plans to execute its mandate. Since the start of its mandate last February, the Ad Hoc Panel has been on diplomatic tours, engaging various Sudanese stakeholders and regional actors. The diplomatic missions involved the engagement of the panel with the conflict actors, both senior officials from the SAF as well as representatives from the RSF. In addition to its engagement with the armed forces, the panel also ensured to convene consultations with key regional stakeholders including civil society actors, academics, humanitarian actors, political actors and other armed actors involved in previous Juba Peace Agreements. The Panel’s consultations also involved non-Sudanese actors with visits, among others, to Cairo and Djibouti where the panel discussed with the League of Arab States, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the executive secretary of IGAD.

The other issue that deserves attention in terms of peacemaking efforts is the approach to the peace process, most notably in terms of the existence of multiple processes that are not necessarily complementary. The efforts thus far involved initiatives by Saudi Arabia and the US focusing on ceasefire negotiations, by IGAD seeking to bring the leaders of the two warring parties and by the AU seeking to facilitate the wider political track of the peace process. None of these various initiatives achieved any meaningful breakthrough. It is expected that the US and Saudi Arabia seek to relaunch talks in Jeddah. Indications are that, unlike previous processes, this time around the scope of Jeddah talks may not be exclusively limited to securing a ceasefire. Additionally, it is expected to expand the participation of key regional and international actors including Egypt, UAE, the AU, IGAD and UN who were not represented in the earlier Jeddah talks.

The expected outcome of the session is a communique. The PSC may welcome the establishment and operationalization of the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan. It may welcome the diplomatic tours that the Panel undertook for consulting Sudanese and other regional stakeholders. As such, the PSC may request the Panel, pending the start of the political peace process within the framework of the AU/IGAD roadmap, to actively participate and engage in all the processes on Sudan. It may also request for the Panel to identify an action plan on a way forward from their field mission. Concerning the armed conflict, the PSC may express its concerns over the continued fighting underscoring that there will be no military solution to the crises in Sudan and calling for the actors to abide by the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan and the recent call for a cessation of hostilities. The PSC may urge an end to the intensification of the fighting and request the conflict actors to contain the proliferation of support from armed groups. The PSC may call on countries backing the two warring parties to end all support to either side of the war as a necessary condition for averting the risk of the situation in Sudan getting completely out of control with dire consequences for the region and international peace and security. The PSC may wish to request for the AU Commission and the AU High-Level Panel to institute a monitoring, documenting and reporting mechanism as useful diplomatic leverage for promoting collaboration of the parties in complying with international humanitarian law rules and avoiding the deliberate targeting of civilians and indiscriminate use of force.  On the humanitarian front, the PSC may welcome the initiative taken by the warring parties to facilitate the opening of humanitarian corridors. It may call for the reinforcement of the protection of humanitarian corridors by calling for the establishment of internationally protected humanitarian corridors. The PSC may also welcome the recent announcement of the pledge of 20 million by donors to facilitate aid in Sudan. In this regard, it may call on follow through on pledges made and delivering on the pledges urgently.

Tomorrow (15 November), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1185^th session at the ministerial level to receive update on the situation in Sudan.

Following the opening remark of Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Djibouti, as the chairperson of the PSC for the month of November, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS) is expected to deliver a statement. Mohamed el Hacen Lebatt, Chief of Staff to the Chairperson of the AU Commission and Spokesperson on Sudan is anticipated to brief the PSC on the situation in Sudan. Workneh Gebeyehu, the Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is also expected to deliver statement both on behalf of IGAD as the regional body and as the representative of IGAD and the AU in the most recent talks in Jeddah.

In two days, the war in Sudan will finish its 7^th month. Yet, there is no sign of the war slowing down, let alone ending. If anything, much of the worst-case scenarios feared about the war continue to unfold. Apart from the continuing downward spiral of the situation with mass atrocities, blatant and deliberate violations of international humanitarian law and one of the world’s worst displacement and humanitarian crises, the war is also characterized by the lack of progress from any of the multiple and poorly coordinated processes for stopping it.

The last time the PSC met to discuss Sudan was on 20 October. At that session, the PSC reiterated its call for cessation of hostilities and protection of civilians. It emphasized the role of IGAD and Sudan’s neighboring states. The session also underscored the need for AU to coordinate all efforts for peace in Sudan, although it did not specify a mechanism that is able to accomplish this rather than the approach taken thus far which failed to enable the AU to play its role effectively.

There are a number of issues of pressing concern for the PSC regarding the situation in Sudan as it convenes its session tomorrow. The first of this involves the trajectory of the war and the grave consequences of its downward spiral both for Sudan and for regional peace and security. The second aspect concerns the human rights and humanitarian dimensions of the war. The challenge for the PSC in this respect is to go beyond expression of grave concern and condemnation and take concrete action to demonstrate its commitment to the principle of non-indifference, including in the face of the genocidal mass atrocities taking place in Darfur. The third issue for tomorrow’s session concerns developments related to efforts for securing ceasefire and starting a wider and effective political process for resolving the conflict. In this respect as well, it would be of direct concern to the mandate of the PSC to identify what needs to change in the approach to AU’s role in the face of the failure of the path taken for the past seven months.

Since last month, there has been an uptick of violence in Darfur after the paramilitary force launched successive offensives in the region. As global attention shifts to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the seven-month long conflict is taking a turn to the worst. Between 26 October and 4 November, RSF and its allied forces gained ground, claiming to seize control of South Darfur capital Nyala (the second largest city), Central Darfur capital Zalingei, and El Geneina of West Darfur. In a bid to capture all of Darfur, RSF also vowed to advance toward El Fasher of North Darfur. This expansion in the territorial control of RSF and the tightening of its grip on areas under its control speeding up the de facto division of Sudan into two parts.

This downward spiral and the associated risks carry huge ramifications for the stability of not just Sudan itself but the wider region. Among others, the vacuum that it creates would make it possible for attracting terrorist groups and the emergence of organized crimes such as illicit circulation and trading of weapons, illegal exploitation of natural resources and war economies generally. All of these conditions stand to make the conflict protracted and to deepen the involvement of various state and non-state actors in the region and beyond.

The raging war also risks dragging signatories to the JPA, who have thus far maintained neutral, in a potential confrontation. This could exacerbate the ethnic dimension of the conflict. In his final briefing to the UN Security Council in September, Volker Perthes made a stern warning regarding the ongoing ‘tribal mobilization’ and its potential ramification for the regional stability and the unity of the country. He said that ‘[w]hat started as a conflict between two military formations could be morphing into a full-scale civil war’.

Beyond its impact on the cohesion of Sudan as a state and on the Juba peace agreement, this war’s most dire consequence is the enormous toll it has on the civilian population. Civilians are made to bear much of the brunt of the violence both on account of being subjected to indiscriminate attacks and deliberate violations on the one hand and the socio-economic and humanitarian difficulties that the war precipitated.

RSF’s march towards extending full control over Darfur is accompanied by the perpetration of mass atrocities. These violations echo the genocidal violence the region experienced nearly two decades ago. Ethnically motivated targeting of non-Arab civilians, mainly from the Masalit communities, are surfacing from reports of local organizations and videos of events captured during RSF military campaign in West Darfur in early November. Most recently, on 3 November, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) expressed alarm over reports that ‘women and girls are being abducted’, chained and held in ‘inhuman, degrading slave-like conditions’ in areas controlled by the RSF in Darfur. While the events in Darfur constitute the worst incidents of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, such violations are not limited to Darfur. Nor is the RSF the only one involved in such violations. Both SAF and RSF are implicated in gross violations. UNITAMS documented 655 alleged incidents of human rights violations and abuses between 7 May and 20 August 2023, most of which were reportedly attributable to RSF.

On the humanitarian front, the seven-month long conflict has unleashed ‘one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history’, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s 2 November humanitarian update on Sudan. The conflict claimed more than 10,000 lives (ACLED recorded 10,400 fatalities) while displacing more than 6 million people, which makes Sudan the country with the largest number of displaced people in the world. The conflict also left 25 million, more than half of the population, in need of humanitarian aid. A recent statement by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also indicates that children are bearing the ‘heaviest brunt of the violence’ with a recorded 3 million children fleeing the violence in search of safety, food, shelter and health care. According to UNICEF, this figure makes Sudan the largest child displacement crisis in the world. UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food programme (WFP) also warned that acute food insecurity could worsen from November 2023 to April 2024 in 18 hunger hotspots, with Sudan among those of highest concern.

Despite this, only 33 percent of the $2.6 billion required to help those in need in Sudan this year is funded. Additionally, the nature of the war is also severely hampering humanitarian access as briefings presented to the PSC on 28 September and early in October highlighted. Sudan is suffering from the triple challenges of dire humanitarian crises, utterly inadequate provision of resources for meeting the growing humanitarian needs of the suffering civilian population and lack of humanitarian space.

Notwithstanding the continuing acts of violence being inflicted on the civilian population involving incidents of mass atrocities including acts amounting to those prohibited under Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act, the PSC and the AU in general did not go beyond expression of concern and condemnation of breaches and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These are exposing the PSC to legitimate charges of falling back to the old politics of indifference to mass atrocities that is characteristic of the now defunct AU’s predecessor, the Organization of African Unity. On the other hand, the UN Human Rights Council decided to establish an independent international fact-finding mission for Sudan last month, with a mandate to investigate and establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of all alleged human rights and international humanitarian law violations in the context of the conflict that erupted in mid-April.

On the peace process front, earlier in May and June, both AU and IGAD rolled out parallel roadmaps for the resolution of the conflict, which they had to eventually harmonize. AU’s Expanded Mechanism – established in April with the aim to bring all relevant stakeholders under one platform has lost steam and exists only in name. IGAD’s decision to assume leadership through the establishment of the quartet, as well as its 12 June action points – including the proposal to facilitate a face-to-face meeting between the leadership of SAF and RSF and initiate inclusive political process within ten days and three weeks, respectively – have also stalled. One of the major factors for this was the rejection by the SAF of Kenya’s role as chairperson of the IGAD quartet. In an encouraging turn of events, following a meeting held in Nairobi Kenya on 13 November, Kenya’s President, William Ruto and SAF’s chief and the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, Abdel-Fattah Al Burhan, agreed on the need to speed up the Jeddah talks on ceasefire and to this end convene an IGAD summit.

The Jeddah talks focusing on ceasefire was also suspended until the start of this month. The latest round that ended on 7 November fell short of a ceasefire. Instead, the warring parties agreed to participate in a joint humanitarian forum led by OCHA to address impediments to humanitarian access and deliveries of assistance; identify points of contact to assist with movements of humanitarian personnel and assistance; and implement confidence building measures, including the establishment of communication between SAF and RSF leaders. This notwithstanding, the statement from the meeting of Ruto and Burhan criticized the Jeddah process for its slow progress. A major development in the latest round of Jeddah talks is the inclusion of IGAD’s Executive Secretary, also on behalf of AU, as co-facilitator of the talks. This is indeed a step in the right direction, although IGAD’s Executive Secretary’s role could not be a standing arrangement, hence underscoring the need for a high-level standing facilitator or panel of facilitators.

From 23 to 26 October, various Sudanese civilian actors and stakeholders, met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to form a united front for pushing for peace. This meeting led to a decision to form the ‘Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (CCDF)’ headed by former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The CCDF is envisaged to prepare the ground for the envisaged convening of a ‘founding conference’ with more diverse representation from Sudan in eight weeks. In a press statement dated 26 October, the Troika (Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States) welcomed the meeting claiming it as ‘an important step towards the formation of an inclusive and representative pro-democracy civilian front’. Around the same time, South Sudan also convened a consultative meeting with the Sudanese signatories to the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) to ‘evaluate the implementation of the JPA and consult with the parties on peace negotiations between RSF and SAF’.

A major gap in the AU’s engagement, which also accounts for its lackluster performance on the Sudan file is the failure to designate a dedicated high-level mechanism that works on a full-time basis. It has been long overdue for the PSC to heed President Museveni’s proposal when he chaired summit level session of the PSC last May on the establishment of a high-level facilitator or panel of facilitators. Such a mechanism whose sole mandate is to work on the search for finding solution to the war in Sudan (rather than the current arrangement in which officials of the AU handle the file as one responsibility among many other matters that they are responsible for) can be established as a joint standing mechanism of IGAD, the AU and the UN and hence provide the requisite sustained engagement and technical backing for the IGAD quartet.

The expected outcome of the session is a communiqué. PSC is expected to welcome the resumption of the Jeddah talks and the participation of IGAD, also on behalf of the AU, as a co-facilitator of the talks.  While welcoming the commitments agreed to by SAF and RSF to facilitate humanitarian aid and implement confidence building measures, it may echo the regret of the co-facilitators that the warring parties failed to reach on a ceasefire. It may also commend Sudanese civilian actors for the convening of a meeting in Addis Ababa, and in this regard, PSC may express its full support to the envisaged convening of a founding conference as part of the effort to end the ongoing conflict and bring Sudan back on track toward a civilian government. Considering the failure of AU’s approach thus far, the PSC may revisit the proposal that was put on the table during its summit level meeting on Sudan held in May and decide to establish a high-level panel of facilitators (which may be appointed jointly by AU, IGAD and UN) to work on the situation in Sudan on a full-time basis.

The PSC is expected to express its grave concern over an uptick of violence in recent weeks. The PSC may in this regard strongly condemn reported gross human right violations, including ethnic-driven killings, rape, torture, looting, and destruction of civilian facilities. As RSF now targets El Fasher of North Darfur, PSC may join growing calls for the paramilitary and its allied forces to immediately put a halt to its offensive in El Fasher to avert civilian causalities. PSC may further urge both warring parties to honor the 11 May Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan and respect their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law. In the face of the continuing incidents of mass atrocities, the PSC may also express its support to the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to establish an independent international fact-finding mission. Regarding the humanitarian situation, the PSC is expected to welcome the recent outcome of the Jeddah talks in which the warring parties committed to participate in a joint humanitarian forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to address impediments to humanitarian access and urge speedy action to implement these commitments. The PSC may also request that a conference for mobilizing support from within the continent and beyond towards contributing to addressing the resource gap for humanitarian assistance.

Tomorrow (20 October), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1179^th session to consider the situation in Sudan.

Following opening remarks by Daniel Owassa, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Congo to the AU and Chairperson of the PSC for October 2023, Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS) is expected to make a statement. Mohamed el Hacen Lebatt, Principal Strategic Adviser to the Chairperson of the AU Commission and Special Envoy to Sudan and Mohamed Belaiche, Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission (SRCC) in Sudan are also expected to deliver statements. In addition, a representative of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is also expected to make remarks on the situation in the country under consideration.

The meeting is being convened as an additional agenda item in October’s provisional programme of work for the activities of the PSC. The last time the PSC convened a meeting to consider the situation in Sudan was during its 1156^th session held at the Heads of State and Government level on 27 May 2023, whereby a Communiqué was adopted as an outcome document. In the Communiqué, the Heads of State and Government adopted the African Union Roadmap for the Resolution of the Conflict in Sudan, towards silencing the guns in Sudan, and called on Sudanese stakeholders and the international community to support the implementation of the Roadmap.

On 31 May 2023, the 3^rd Meeting of the Expanded Mechanism for the Resolution of the Sudan Conflict was convened. The meeting, which was chaired by Professor Mohamed El-Hacen Lebatt, Spokesperson for the AU Process for Sudan, presented to the members of the Expanded Mechanism the outcomes of the 1156^th PSC Meeting as well as the next steps towards an inclusive, Sudanese-owned process, that would end the fighting and put Sudan on the path to a democratic, civilian-led government. In addition, the Expanded Mechanism welcomed the Jeddah Process, facilitated by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, which resulted in the Declaration of Commitments and the Short-term Ceasefire and Humanitarian Assistance Arrangement.

In alignment with the Expanded Mechanism’s commitment to convene the Core Group, the AU held its inaugural meeting with the Core Group of the Expanded Mechanism on 2 June 2023 to fine-tune the modalities of the implementation of the roadmap and settle on concrete steps for a ceasefire. The final outcomes of this convening have yet to be released.

Tomorrow’s meeting will provide an opportunity for the PSC to deliberate on the progress made towards the implementation of the adopted Roadmap during the 1156^th meeting. This includes the following six elements outlined in the Roadmap:

1. Establishment of a coordination mechanism to ensure all efforts by the regional and global actors are harmonized and impactful;
2. Immediate, permanent, inclusive and comprehensive cessation of hostilities;
3. Effective humanitarian response;
4. Protection of civilians and civil infrastructure;
5. Strategic role of neighboring states and the region; and
6. Resumption of a credible and inclusive political transition process, that takes into account the contributory role of all Sudanese political and social actors, as well as the signatories to the Juba Peace Agreement, towards a democratic civilian-led government.

As the conflict in the country between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) passed its sixth month, tomorrow’s meeting is also expected to give an insight into the recent joint AU-IGAD delegation meeting with Sudanese political and civilian groups. The delegation met with the democratic Bloc, allied groups in Cairo, and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) to initiate a political process to end the ongoing conflict and establish new constitutional arrangements to reinstate civilian governance.

The 14^th Ordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government was also held on Monday, 12 June 2023, in Djibouti, the Republic of Djibouti, where it adopted the IGAD Roadmap for the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of Sudan. The action points from the Roadmap included:

• Include the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia as the fourth member of the IGAD High-Level Delegation for the Peace Process in the Republic of Sudan; and for H.E. William Ruto, President of the Republic of Kenya, to Chair the Quartet Countries of the Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and for the Quartet to work in close coordination with the African Union Commission;
• Within ten days, the Quartet to arrange a face-to-face meeting between H.E. Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the Chairperson of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of the Republic of Sudan, and Gen. Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo in one of the regional capitals;
• Within two weeks secure a commitment from the leadership of SAF and RSF to establish a humanitarian corridor;
• Within three weeks initiate an inclusive political process towards a political settlement of the conflict in the Republic of Sudan.

Since its initial convening, IGAD has hosted consecutive meetings in alignment with its roadmap. On 10 July 2023, IGAD Heads of State and Government held a meeting at the level of Quartet to address the implementation of the roadmap. The session explored substantial options including a request to the East African Standby Force to convene a meeting on the options of deployment for the protection of civilians. The meeting also recognized the supplementary role neighboring states have taken with the initiative to convene on 13 July 2023 in Egypt to address peace and stability in the Republic of Sudan in alignment with the IGAD Roadmap. Finally, a significant decision was made to ensure measures are taken for the facilitation of immediate humanitarian assistance. However, the decision to ensure humanitarian access was not revisited during the second IGAD Quartet Group meeting that recently took place on 6 September 2023. The second IGAD Quartet Group meeting instead emphasized the need for an all-inclusive consultation of civilian actors that will yield a more structured approach to peace dialogue and as such mandated IGAD and the AU to expedite the consultation process.

Despite the existence of such various mechanisms and initiatives, currently there is no meaningful processes for addressing the situation. The ceasefire process has stalled. Thus, after nearly a dozen mediated or declared ceasefire initiatives, the very process for ceasefire has been suspended. Neither the IGAD process nor that of the AU has also led to any meaningful wider peace or political process. There are two issues arising from this state of affair. The first is the existence of multiple initiatives and absence of a common platform around which all actors rally. The second concerns the fact that there is no dedicated mechanism that works on a full-time basis on the war on Sudan, for example, along the lines proposed by President Museveni when he Chair the PSC last May on Sudan – establishment of a high-level facilitator or panel of facilitators.

These various processes failed to do anything more than meeting and adopting statements or communiqués. None managed to mitigate or in any way make a dent on the war. The result of the inadequacies of these various and poorly coordinated processes is that the war is allowed to continue to rage on, with no end in sight. Neither the AU nor IGAD are able to put in place or initiate a mechanism to also address and ameliorate the worsening humanitarian crisis.

The war has claimed the lives of nearly 10,000 people. Over 5.8 million have been internally displaced. 1.2 million people have fled to neighboring countries as refugees. Apart from this, humanitarian actors are able to reach to and deliver humanitarian assistance to only 3 percent of the more than 18 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. The war also continues to involve not only indiscriminate attacks on civilians but also cause enormous destruction on civilian infrastructure. The country continues to fragment and Sudan is risking if not already experiencing state collapse. Apart from the suffering this creates to Sudanese, it creates vacuum, which if not urgently addressed, may be exploited by war economy entrepreneurs including terrorist groups.

One of the focus of tomorrow’s session could be receiving feedback on where the various processes stand and whether there is now an opening for a meaningful peace process based on the engagement with the various civilian groupings. Additionally, it would be of particular interest for members of the PSC to get a dedicated mechanism that monitors, documents and reports on the humanitarian situation and facilitates civilian protection and compliance by warring parties with international humanitarian law.

The anticipated outcome of tomorrow’s session is a Communique. It is expected that Council will call on members of the international community, including the immediate neighbors of Sudan, to continue to demonstrate solidarity by assisting Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers, among others, by facilitating expeditious and dignified processes, conditions of entry, transit and reception of refugees from Sudan in line with the provisions of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1969 Kampala Convention. It may also underscore the growing humanitarian toll resulting from the conflict in Sudan, urge conflicting parties to observe the fundamental rules and principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law underpinning the protection of civilians and appeal to the international community to redouble efforts geared towards ensuring effective delivery of humanitarian assistance to affected communities. In this respect, the PSC may specifically call on the parties to end indiscriminate attacks against civilians. The PSC may further emphasise the importance of consolidating efforts and creating better coherence between the various initiatives put underway to manage the crisis in Sudan. It may also call for the establishment of a joint high-level panel on Sudan by the AU, IGAD and the UN.