It would have been easier to persuade the warring factions under Gen Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Gen Hemeti to agree to a ceasefire in the region at that stage – a ceasefire in May and June in Darfur could have saved more lives than the shaky agreements reached in and around Khartoum (AC Vol 64 No 10 A war that hits everyone all at once & Vol 64 No 11 A ceasefire with monitors this time)...

Hemeti's RSF is reckoned to number around 100 000 while General Abdel Fattah al Burhan Commander of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) presides over about 200 000 soldiers and the air force...

Should the SAF prevail it is unthinkable that General Abdel Fattah al Burhan will offer any political or commercial accommodation to General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti'...

Other peace initiatives including those pushed by Saudi Arabia and the United States have also foundered and on 31 May all bets were off when Gen Abdel Fattah al Burhan announced that he was withdrawing from peace talks in Jeddah...

That was evident in a phone call by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to General Abdel Fattah al Burhan a few hours before the signing of the latest agreement...

Outsiders criticised her for failing to sanction Generals Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti' but they said less on the Biden administration's other missteps...

Generals Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti' had said they support a humanitarian ceasefire but have intensified the fighting over the past week (AC Vol 64 No 9 Regional states hold back for now)...

Despite multiple attempts to dampen the tensions after the SAF commander General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti' failed to reach agreement on integrating their forces by the 29 March deadline preparations for a fight to the finish rumbled on (AC Vol 64 No 9 Mediators proliferate as fighting intensifies and more flee Khartoum)...

General Abdel Fattah al Burhan is relying on other military operators especially the successors to the Islamist Popular Defence Forces that had thrived under the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regimes of Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir until his ousting in April 2019...

The feared internationalisation of the fight between the forces of Generals Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti' is contingent on how long it lasts and its outcome in Khartoum...

All of them have called on the rival military leaders General Abdel Fattah al Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemeti' of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to pause the fighting that has claimed over 400 lives and wounded over 3 500 in the capital alone according to the UN Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)...