Tag: Sudan

Court agrees to revisit case on program shielding over 300,000 immigrants from deportation

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Washington — A federal appeals court on Friday decided to revisit a case that could decide the fate of more than 300,000 immigrants living in the U.S. legally on humanitarian grounds, setting aside a ruling that had allowed the government to revoke their temporary legal status.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voided a 2020 ruling issued by a three-judge panel in the California-based appeals court that had allowed the Trump administration to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

Granting a request by attorneys representing immigrants enrolled in the TPS programs, the appeals court said it would hear the case once more, this time “en banc,” or with all active judges participating. It’s unclear though when the 9th Circuit could rule on the case again.

Immigrant rights activists and those with Temporary Protected Status march near the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2022.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

Friday’s ruling is a victory, at least in the near-term, for TPS holders and their advocates, who have urged Congress for years to allow those enrolled in the program to apply for permanent U.S. residency.

The decision is also the latest development in a complicated, years-long legal battle over the TPS policy, which allows the Department of Homeland Security to give deportation protections and work permits to immigrants from countries beset by war, environmental disasters or other humanitarian crises.

As part of its efforts to curtail humanitarian immigration policies, the Trump administration tried to end multiple TPS programs, arguing that the authority had long been abused by other administrations.

A federal judge in 2018 barred the Trump administration from ending the TPS programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, saying officials had not properly justified the decision, and that the terminations raised “serious questions” about whether they stemmed from animus against non-White immigrants.

In 2020, a three-judge panel of 9th Circuit judges set aside the lower court ruling, saying courts could not second guess the federal government’s TPS decisions. The panel also said it did not find a direct link between then-President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about non-White immigrants, and the TPS terminations.

That ruling, however, never took effect because attorneys representing TPS holders asked for the case to be reheard. The litigation became connected with another lawsuit filed against the Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for Nepal and Honduras, and the government agreed it would not terminate those policies until it was allowed to revoke the programs for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

Starting in 2021, the case was paused for more than a year as the Biden administration entered negotiations with lawyers for TPS holders to try to forge a deal to settle the case, including by potentially giving the immigrants in question a path to permanent status.

But those negotiations collapsed in October 2022, fueling concerns that TPS holders from the affected countries could lose their legal status and be forced to leave the U.S., or remain in the country without authorization.

In November, the Biden administration announced it would allow immigrants at the center of the case to keep their work permits and deportation protections at least one full year after the government is allowed to end the TPS programs in question, or until June 30, 2024 — whichever date comes later.

The Biden administration has taken a drastically different position on TPS than the Trump administration. It has created TPS designations for a record number of countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Venezuela, making hundreds of thousands of immigrants eligible for the temporary legal status.

The administration has also announced extensions of the TPS programs for Haitian and Sudanese immigrants living in the U.S., but it has not announced similar moves for immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, despite requests from advocates.

Ahilan Arulanantham, the lead lawyer representing TPS holders, and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, said the Biden administration can announce new programs for these countries to ensure the fate of his clients is not dictated by court rulings.

“We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear this case,” Arulanantham said. “But we should never have gotten to this point. President Biden had — and still has — every opportunity to fulfill his promise to protect the TPS-holder community.”

As of the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalis and 4,250 Nicaraguans were enrolled in the TPS program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.

TPS allows beneficiaries to live and work in the country without fear of deportation, but it does not provide them a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Those who lose their TPS protections could become eligible for deportation, unless they apply for, and are granted, another immigration benefit.

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Camilo Montoya-Galvez

Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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February 10, 2023
Sudan strikes deal with UAE firms for $6 billion port

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CAIRO — Sudan’s military government signed a $6 billion preliminary agreement with two firms from the United Arab Emirates Tuesday to construct a new port on the Red Sea coast, Sudanese state media said.

According to the SUNA news agency, Abu Dhabi Ports Group and Invictus Investment will build and manage the new port of Abu Amama, about 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) north of Sudan’s only other port, Port Sudan.

The announcement comes a week after Sudan’s ruling military generals signed a “framework agreement” with the country’s main pro-democracy group, among other political forces, which could spur a new civilian government and military removed from power.

But the framework agreement offers only a rough outline of how the country expects to resume its road to democracy and has been rejected by several major political forces. Further talks for a second more inclusive deal are expected soon.

The port of Abu Amama will include an international airport, a network of internal roads and a power station, among other features, said Sudanese Finance Minister Gibreel Ibrahim, who was at the signing.

The site will be a ‘’special economic zone” for trade and business between the Sudanese government and the two UAE businesses. No time frame for Abu Amama’s construction was provided.

The UAE, along with the United States, The United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia helped broker last week’s framework deal after facilitating months of cross-party talks. The Gulf state has been a leading investor in Sudan in recent years, an ally of its military generals and a large consumer of Sudanese gold.

Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the country’s leading military figure, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, led a coup in October 2021 that upended the country’s democratic transition following three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir.

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December 13, 2022
Blinken threatens travel ban for Sudanese who endanger deal

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CAIRO — Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sudanese leaders Wednesday that the United States will impose a travel ban on any individuals who threaten to derail Sudan’s fragile democratic transition.

The announcement comes two days after Sudan’s two ruling generals, Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, and its main pro-democracy group, the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, signed a ‘’framework agreement.’’ The deal would see its military step back from power and the establishment of a new civilian-led transitional government. Various other political parties and organizations also signed the deal.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Blinken commended Monday’s deal, brokered by the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. He then added that a travel ban would be imposed on any will individuals ‘’believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic transition in Sudan.‘’

Sudan’s framework deal appears to offer only the roughest outlines for how Sudan will resume its fragile progression to democracy, with key political players having refused to sign the agreement. The deal also ducked thornier issues concerning transitional justice and the implementation of military reform.

The U.N. special envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, called the political framework agreement “an important breakthrough.”

But in a video briefing from Khartoum to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, he cautioned that “critical contentious issues still need to be addressed in the final agreement.”

These include reforming the security sector and merging rival forces, ensuring transitional justice, and implementing a peace agreement signed in Juba in 2020 by Sudan’s transitional government and several armed groups.

Perthes said the U.N. would also like to have an exchange in the next phase of talks on the economic and development priorities of a new government.

He warned that this week’s encouraging progress on the political track “can still be derailed by challenges and spoilers.” As a final agreement gets closer, Perthes said, “those who don’t see their interests advanced by a political settlement may escalate attempts to undermine the process.”

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, are absent from the agreement. Also missing are Sudan’s sprawling grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees, which have refused to negotiate with Sudan’s military leaders.

‘‘Recognizing the fragility of democratic transitions, the United States will hold to account spoilers — whether military or political actors.’’ Blinken said. Further negotiations for a more inclusive agreement are expected to take place shortly.

Sudan has been in turmoil since the country’s leading military figure, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, led a coup in October 2021 that upended the country’s previous democratic transition following three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir.

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December 7, 2022
Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

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KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s coup leaders and the main pro-democracy group signed a deal Monday to establish a civilian-led transitional government following the military takeover last year. But key players refused to participate, and no deadline was set for the transition to begin.

The framework — signed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo and the leaders of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — appears to offer only the broadest outlines for how the country will resume its progression to democracy. That process was upended in October 2021, when Burhan unseated the civilian half of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council with Dagolo’s backing.

Since the coup, international aid has dried up and bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become routine, plunging Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. Security forces have ruthlessly suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches. Deadly tribal clashes have flared in the country’s neglected peripheries.

It’s not clear whether or how quickly the deal signed Monday can offer a way out for Sudan, given that it appears to leave many thorny issues unresolved and doesn’t have the support of key political forces, including the grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees. That network’s leaders called for demonstrations against the agreement.

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, have also rejected the deal.

Many of the points in a draft of the deal were already promised in a 2020 agreement that saw Sudan’s previous transitional government make peace with several rebels in Sudan’s far-flung provinces.

According to the draft, the deal envisions Sudan’s military eventually stepping back from politics. The document says it will form part of a new ’’security and defense council” under the appointed prime minister. But it does not address how to reform the armed forces, saying only they should be unified and controls should be imposed on military-owned companies.

It makes specific mention of Sudan’s wealthy paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Dagalo. The force amassed wealth through its gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves in recent years.

It also does not address creating a transitional judiciary system or say when the transitional government will be put in place. Only then will a two-year transition officially begin — the end goal of which is elections.

Analysts have cast doubt over whether the aims of the agreement are achievable, given its lack of detail on key issues and the boycott of key players.

‘‘Realistically none of these complex processes can be dealt with within a transitional time frame of two years,’’ said Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Khartoum.

Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the coup threw off course a democratic transition that began after three decades of autocratic rule by President Omar al-Bashir. The former leader was toppled in April 2019, following a popular uprising.

The U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, attended Monday’s signing and later, at a speech at the palace, described the deal as ‘‘Sudanese-owned and Sudanese-led.’’

Monday’s development came after months of negotiations between the military and the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, facilitated by a mediating team of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Britain.

In a joint statement issued after the signing, the four countries commended the agreement.

“A concerted effort to finalize negotiations and reach agreement quickly to form a new civilian-led government is essential to address Sudan’s urgent political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges,” the group said.

The hope is the deal could draw in new international aid, after donor funds dried up in response to the coup.

Sudan has also seen a sharp increase in inter-tribal violence in the country’s west and south. In the southern Blue Nile province, two days of clashes between the Berta and Hausa killed over 170 peopl e in October. Last month some 48 were killed in tribal clashes in Darfur. Many commentators have attributed the rising tribal violence to the power vacuum caused by last year’s military takeover and the subsequent political and economic crisis.

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Jeffery reported from Cairo.

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December 5, 2022
U.S. extends temporary legal status of 337,000 immigrants through 2024 amid court battle

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The Biden administration on Thursday said it would extend the deportation protections and work permits of an estimated 337,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras through the summer of 2024, preempting a court decision that could have led to their legal status expiring next year.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a notice that it will allow immigrants from these countries to continue living and working in the U.S. legally under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) policy until at least June 2024. Created in 1990, TPS is a deportation relief program the U.S. can extend to nationals of countries beset by armed conflict, natural disasters or other humanitarian crises.

Thursday’s announcement comes two weeks after court negotiations between the Biden administration and lawyers representing TPS holders broke down, paving the way for the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants enrolled in the program to take effect.

Activists and citizens with temporary protected status march toward the White House on Feb. 23, 2021, in Washington, D.C., in a call for Congress and the Biden administration to pass immigration reform legislation.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

But in its notice on Thursday, DHS said immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras would get to keep their work permits and deportation protections at least 365 days after the department is allowed to end the TPS programs in question, or until June 30, 2024 — whichever date comes later.

The June 30, 2024, extension also applies to certain Haitian and Sudanese immigrants, but they are also eligible to apply for work permits and deportation protections under expansions of TPS programs for Haiti and Sudan announced by the Biden administration that are not affected by the litigation in federal court.

“DHS is well aware of the importance of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in providing stability to people’s lives,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News on Thursday.

As of the end of 2021, 241,699 Salvadorans, 76,737 Hondurans, 14,556 Nepalis and 4,250 Nicaraguans were enrolled in the TPS program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.

TPS allows beneficiaries to live and work in the country without fear of deportation, but it does not provide them a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Those who lose their TPS protections could become eligible for deportation, unless they apply for, and are granted, another immigration benefit.

As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration tried to terminate TPS programs for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras and Nepal. But those terminations were blocked in federal courts by lawsuits that argued the terminations were rooted in racial animus and not properly justified

In September 2020, however, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the Trump administration the greenlight to end the TPS programs, saying courts could not review DHS decisions related to the policy. The ruling, however, did not take effect, because attorneys representing the TPS holders asked the court to consider rehearing the case “en banc,” or with all active judges participating.

The Biden administration, which pledged to prevent the deportation of TPS holders to “unsafe” countries, entered into court negotiations to try to settle the litigation over the Trump-era termination decisions. It also formally extended the TPS programs for immigrants from Haiti and Sudan.

After a year of court negotiations, attorneys for TPS holders announced on Oct. 26 that they had failed to reach a settlement with the Biden administration. Both parties are now waiting for the 9th Circuit to decide whether it will grant or deny the request to rehear the case.

If the request is denied, the 9th Circuit’s ruling from September 2020 will become binding, unless the Supreme Court intervenes.

Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys representing TPS holders in the litigation, said Thursday’s announcement was an “important victory.” But he called it an “interim one.”

“Despite today’s extension, the Biden administration is still defending Trump’s racist TPS termination decisions in court, which unless the Biden administration acts, will remain on the books,” said Arulanantham, the co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

Arulanantham called on the Biden administration to create new TPS programs for El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal and Honduras, just like it has done for Haiti and Sudan.

Democratic lawmakers have advocated for TPS holders to be allowed to apply for permanent residency as part of a proposal to legalize unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years. Many TPS holders have lived in the country for over two decades. The TPS program for El Salvador, for example, began in 2001.

But congressional Democrats and Republicans have not been able to forge an agreement on immigration for decades, and GOP lawmakers have increasingly opposed creating legalization programs, absent changes to U.S. border policy.

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Camilo Montoya-Galvez

Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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November 10, 2022
Thousands march in Khartoum on 1st anniversary of Sudan coup

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CAIRO — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sudan’s capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, marking the first anniversary of a military coup that upended the nation’s short-lived transition to democracy.

Videos published on social media showed marchers with flags and drums, most of them bound for the Presidential Palace. Other footage showed protesters standing in front of convoys of security forces.

Netblocks, an online network tracker, announced early Tuesday that internet services across the country were blocked. Various Sudanese pro-democracy activists and local journalists reported security forces fired tear gas at protesters and earlier closed off bridges leading into Khartoum. The Associated Press has been unable to verify these claims.

Since its takeover, the military has cracked down and suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches, with as many as 118 protesters killed, according to statistics published by the Sudan Doctors Committee.

Sudan’s top general, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and paramilitary deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo were meant to oversee a democratic transition after Sudan’s autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019.

But last year, Burhan dissolved the ruling Sovereign Council, arrested the transitional prime minister and unseated the civilian faction of a power-sharing government that had been in place. He later said he acted to stop a civil war.

Rights groups say hundreds have been detained since the military takeover, many without charge.

In recent weeks, internationally backed talks between Sudan’s pro-democracy movement and the ruling military have made some progress.

According to The Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — an alliance of political parties and protest groups — the military has agreed on a draft constitutional document written by the country’s Bar Association. This would allow the appointment of a civilian prime minister who would lead the country through elections by 2024.

But Sudan’s more ardent pro-democracy groups, including the grassroots Resistance Committees who spearhead anti-coup street protests, reject any settlement with the military. Along with the Communist Party, they have demanded that those responsible for the year’s deadly crackdown on demonstrations be tried in court.

‘‘I have no trust in the army’s intentions, the new negotiation is just a new division of wealth and power” said Ammar Yahya, the spokesperson for a Khartoum branch of the Resistance Committees.

The coup has plunged Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. International aid has dried up while bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become increasingly routine.

In a statement also marking the coup’s anniversary, the head of The U.S. Agency for International Development condemned the takeover but said she was ‘encouraged’ by the recent agreement over the Bar Association’s constitutional document.

‘‘I reiterate the call for the military to cede power back to civilian authorities,’’ Samantha Powell added.

The year has also seen a resurgence of deadly tribal clashes in the country’s neglected peripheries. Fierce clashes between the Hausa and Berta people last week killed at least 230 people in southern Blue Nile province.

Many analysts consider the rising violence in the south a product of the power vacuum caused by the military takeover, with the ruling generals’ clampdown focused on the center of power, Khartoum and the country’s heartland, while the peripheries descend into chaos.

Burhan and Dagalo have separately promised to step back from politics following the reinstatement of a civilian government. But amid the chaos, both have also sought to further their political influence.

Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, implicated in the killing of more than 100 sit-in protesters in June 2019 in Khartoum, have continued to expand across the country. Meanwhile, Burhan has overseen the reinstatement of dozens of civil servants sacked by the previous government for their association with al-Bashir’s circle.

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October 25, 2022
Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

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CAIRO — Two days of tribal fighting in Sudan’s south killed at least 220 people, a senior health official said Sunday, marking one the deadliest bouts of tribal violence in recent years. The unrest added to the woes of an African nation mired in civil conflict and political chaos.

Fighting in Blue Nile province, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute. It pits the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people.

The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia, according to Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the director general of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile.

He told The Associated Press that officials counted at least 220 dead as of Saturday night, adding the tally could be much higher since medical teams were not able to reach the epicenter of the fighting.

Bakheit said the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Was el-Mahi late Saturday to try to assess the situation, including counting “this huge number of bodies,” and the dozens of injured.

“In such clashes, everyone loses,” he said. “We hope it ends soon and never happens again. But we need strong political, security and civil interventions to achieve that goal.”

Footage from the scene, which corresponded to the AP’s reporting, showed burned houses and charred bodies. Others showed women and children fleeing on foot.

Many houses were burned down in the fighting, which displaced some 7,000 people to the city of Rusyaris. Others fled to neighboring provinces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Overall, about 211,000 people have been displaced by tribal violence and other attacks across the country this year, it said.

Authorities ordered a nighttime curfew in Wad el-Mahi and deployed troops to the area. They also established a fact-finding committee to investigate the clashes, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

The fighting between the two groups first erupted in mid-July, killing at least 149 people as of earlier October. It triggered violent protests and stoked tensions between the two tribes in Blue Nile and other provinces.

The latest fighting comes at a critical time for Sudan, just a few days before the first anniversary of a military coup that further plunged the country into turmoil. The coup derailed the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of the repressive rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in April 2019 by a popular uprising.

In recent weeks the military and the pro-democracy movement have engaged in talks to find a way out of the ongoing situation. The generals agreed to allow civilians to appoint a prime minister to lead the country through elections within 24 months, the pro-democracy movement said last week.

However, the violence in Blue Nile is likely to slow down such efforts. Protest groups, who reject the deal with the ruling generals, have been preparing for mass anti-military demonstrations called for Tuesday, the anniversary of the coup.

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October 23, 2022
Sudan officials: Tribal clashes kill 170 in country’s south

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CAIRO — Tribal clashes in Sudan’s southern province of Blue Nile have killed at least 170 people over the past two days, two Sudanese officials said Thursday, the latest in inter-communal violence across the country’s neglected south.

The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the clashes erupted on Wednesday and that sporadic fighting continues. Government troops were deployed to the area to try to de-escalate the conflict. The dead include women and children, the two officials said.

Blue Nile has been shaken by ethnic violence over the past months. Tribal clashes that erupted in July killed 149 people by early October, and last week, renewed clashes killed another 13 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

The July fighting involved the Hausa, a tribe with origins across West Africa, and the Berta people, following a land dispute. On Thursday, a group representing the Hausa said they have been under attack by individuals armed with heavy weapons over the past two days, but did not blame any specific tribe or group for the attack.

A Hausa group issued a statement calling for de-escalation and a stop to ”the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Hausa.” The tribe has long been marginalized within Sudanese society, with July’s violence sparking a string of Hausa protests across the country. The Blue Nile is home to dozens of different ethnic groups, with hate speech and racism often inflaming decades-long tribal tensions.

OCHA had no confirmation of the latest surge in casualties but said the violence has displaced at least 1,200 people since last week. According to the U.N. agency, the villages surrounding the city of Ar Rusyaris have been at the epicenter of the violence.

Earlier in the day, OCHA said that tribal clashes in nearby West Kordofan province, which broke out last week, killed 19 people and wounded dozens. A gunfight there between the Misseriya and Nuba ethnic groups erupted amid a land dispute near the town of Al Lagowa, the agency said.

The West Kordofan state governor visited the town on Tuesday to talk to local residents in a bid to de-escalate the conflict before coming under artillery fire from a nearby mountainous area, OCHA said. There were no reports of casualties from the artillery fire.

“Fighting in West Kordofan and the Blue Nile states risks further displacements and human suffering,″ OCHA said. ”There is also a risk of an escalation and spread of the fighting with additional humanitarian consequences,” it said

On Wednesday, the Sudanese army accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a rebel group active in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, of being behind the attack on Al Lagowa. The rebel group has not responded to the accusation.

The violence in West Kordofan prompted around 36,500 people to flee Al Lagowa while many who remained sought shelter in the town’s army base, OCHA added. The area is currently inaccessible to humanitarian aid, the agency said.

Eisa El Dakar, a local journalist from West Kordofan, told The AP last week that the conflict there is partly rooted in the two ethnic groups’ conflicting claims to local land, with the Misseriya being predominately a herding community and the Nuba mostly farmers.

Much of Kordofan and other areas in southern Sudan have been rocked by chaos and conflict over the past decade.

Sudan has been plugged into turmoil since a coup last October that upended the country’s brief democratic transition after three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir. He was toppled in an April 2019 popular uprising, paving the way for a civilian-military power-sharing government.

Many analysts consider the rising violence a product of the power vacuum in the region, caused by the military coup last October. The violence has also further threatened Sudan’s already struggling economy, compounded by fuel shortages caused, in part, by the war in Ukraine.

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October 20, 2022
Sudan’s Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces sign agreement intended to lay groundwork for humanitarian assistance in Sudan, say US officials | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The warring Sudanese parties have signed an agreement intended to lay the groundwork for humanitarian assistance to resume in Sudan, senior US State Department officials said Thursday.

The agreement signed in Jeddah by representatives from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is not a ceasefire, but rather “a declaration of commitment to protect the civilians of Sudan.”

The purpose of the declaration “is to guide the conduct of the two forces so that we can get in humanitarian assistance, help begin the restoration of essential services like electricity and water, to arrange for the withdrawal of security forces from hospitals and clinics, and to perform the respectful burial of the dead,” one of the officials explained.

The next step will be to negotiate a ceasefire which would allow those actions to take place, the official told reporters, and talks on that could begin as early as Friday.

Children caught in the crossfire as rival factions fight in Sudan

“We will move as fast as we can with the parties to get to actual actions. We’ve already made specific recommendations to each side to take actions and some of that is happening,” the official told reporters on a call.

A ceasefire monitoring mechanism has been developed to “help hold the parties accountable to what they’ve agreed to do,” the official said.

The declaration, the name of which was “requested by the parties to emphasize that they’re interested in trying to help the civilians who are suffering from this fighting,” was signed following days of “pre-negotiation talks” which have been mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Those talks began this weekend in Jeddah, weeks after the outbreak of fighting in Sudan that has left hundreds dead and thousands injured, caused tens of thousands to flee their homes and left the country on the brink of civil war and a massive humanitarian catastrophe.

A second senior State Department official said that it took longer than expected to get an agreement on the declaration, and “the negotiations were very tough,” particularly given “the depth of enmity” between the RSF and the SAF.

The first official said that the SAF and RSF negotiators “with the support of the Saudi and American mediators,” will now “begin to negotiate an actual short term ceasefire.”

The goal is to reach a ceasefire of up to 10 days, they said, “but we’ll have to see what’s possible to facilitate those activities.”

A ceasefire monitoring mechanism, which will be supported by the United Nations, Saudi Arabia, the US, “and other members of the international community,” has been developed. The second official said the mechanism includes “overhead imagery, including satellite data,” social media analysis, and on the ground reporting from Sudanese civil society members.

The official noted that “we’ve seen violations by both sides in all the ceasefires to date and don’t expect that to change.”

They said they intend to establish a committee that the ceasefire monitoring mechanism would report to, which would include representatives from the RSF, SAF, and international community. Asked about punitive measures, the official said that “the biggest one here would frankly be public attribution where possible,” which would help combat propaganda and misinformation about who was responsible for the violations.

The first official noted that this was just the initial phase of talks, telling reporters, “this is going to be a process so we are just at the first stage.”

“We did this in partnership with the Saudis, at the request of the two sides,” the first official said of the talks in Jeddah. “The two sides asked us to help them out with this, but there is every expectation that this process will be expanded to include, first and most importantly, Sudanese civilians, and secondly, regional partners in Africa and in the Arab world, and then the international community.”

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April 12, 2021
Democratic Reforms Underway in Sudan With Eyes Set on Washington, According to CMPImedia

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Testing the outcome of a three-year-long national dialogue among 107 political parties and movements in the East African country of Sudan has begun with possible shocks to the political system

Press Release
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updated: May 15, 2017

New York, NY, May 15, 2017 (Newswire.com)
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Ongoing political reforms in the East African country of Sudan are set to shift the political landscape of the region in historic proportions, even as analysts caution that the country could slide into a one-party rule with potential consequences of groupthink and absence of opposition.

In separate interviews with visiting American journalists in Khartoum, the Vice President, Engr. Ibrahim M. Hamid, and Foreign Affairs Minister, Prof. Ibrahim Ghandour, outlined measures to change the political environment in a country eager to warm up its relationship with Washington after 20 years of economic sanctions set to end in July.

“I think this is the largest inclusivity in the history of Sudan and largest government formation in the country.”

Prof. Ibrahim Ghandour, Foreign Affairs Minister

Apparently acknowledging the historic nature of this reform, Hamid remarked that the ruling party approved a two-term limit for office holders as part of the change to rewrite the political future of a region notorious for seat-tight leaders where political figures are forced out of office either by death or uprising. It is believed that the political reforms taking place in a region that witnessed the Arab Spring could be a strategic move to broaden the political space for more participation and transparency.

Engr. Hamid maintained that, going forward, at least 50% of its leadership must be composed of new leaders at all times, thereby paving the way for youths and women to join the political process. “Now we have 60% new leaders and at least 30% are women. Even in the parliament, 30% are women in the central government in Khartoum and in all 18 States of the country,” he stated.

Foreign Minister Ghandour described the current political experiment in Sudan as unprecedented and the most ambitious participatory government in the region. “One of the ways that have been used properly is inclusion, and this is why the national dialogue came into existence almost 3 years ago by the decision of the president in 2014 involving 107 political parties and movements talking to each other for almost two years and agreeing on recommendations that ceded 900 accommodations of issues of concern from politics to economy to governance to foreign policy,” the top diplomat stated.

He spoke of the nexus between a country’s domestic policy and foreign policy, stressing that the Bashir administration in Khartoum was determined to forge peace within the country and also with South Sudan government in what he phrased as the “price of peace.”

In the words of Sudan’s top diplomat “… for the price of peace, it has been too high to have part of the country to be lost and part of the people created a new country, and we continue talking to the rebels, including the people of Darfur,” as exemplified in the Abuja, Doha, and Addis Ababa rounds of talks.

Ghandour, who displayed apparent mastery of his job, spoke of the strategic importance of Sudan in the restoration of peace and security in the region and emphasized the shared bond among countries in the horn of Africa.

Source: CMPImedia

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May 15, 2017