A paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of Sudanese civilians in a war that has triggered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis said Thursday it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from U.S.-led mediators, although an American official indicated a final deal had not been struck yet.
Hours after the announcement, a State Department spokesperson indicated the U.S. was still working to get both sides — the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military — to agree a truce.
"The United States continues to engage directly with the RSF and SAF to facilitate a humanitarian truce," the spokesperson said, referring to the Sudanese Armed Forces. "We urge both sides to move forward in response to the U.S.-led effort to conclude a humanitarian truce."
The RSF, which has been widely accused of carrying out atrocities during 18 months of fighting, earlier said in a statement that it had accepted the truce “in order to address the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the war and to enhance the protection of civilians.”
The ceasefire would "ensure the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance to all Sudanese people," the group added about the proposal put forward by a mediator group known as the Quad and made up of the U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
An official from the Sudanese military, which the RSF has been fighting for control and has also been accused of widespread atrocities, told The Associated Press that the army would only agree to a truce that includes the RSF withdrawing from civilian areas and giving up weapons.
The RSF seized control of the city of el-Fasher, the army's last stronghold in the western Darfur region, over a week ago. Civilians fleeing the area and satellite imagery suggest the militia carried out mass killings of those who remained.
The war that erupted in April 2023 has forced more than 14 million people from their homes and fueled disease outbreaks. Two regions of Sudan are enduring a famine that’s at risk of spreading, according to the United Nations.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the war, according to United Nations figures, although aid groups say the true death toll is likely many times higher.
The RSF said it was looking forward "to implementing the agreement and immediately commencing discussions on the arrangements for a cessation of hostilities."
Fighting has raged in Sudan since the military, controlled by the country’s top commander and de facto ruler, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, then partners in power, clashed over plans to integrate their forces.
Burhan and his former deputy, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — a former camel dealer widely known as Hemedti who leads the RSF — were leaders of a 2019 counterinsurgency that led to the ouster of longtime President Omar al-Bashir.
Two years later, they agreed to rule together after a coup that brought down the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
But their alliance spectacularly broke down over how to manage the transition to a civilian government, and, with neither seemingly willing to cede power, the war broke out.
The United States determined in January that RSF members and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan and imposed sanctions on Dagalo. It had previously sanctioned other leaders, as well as army officials.
There was widespread outrage last week after RSF forces entered the city of el-Fasher which it had besieged for 18 months, cutting off most food and other supplies needed by the population of tens of thousands of people.
One eyewitness told NBC News they had witnessed RSF fighters slaughtering people and running them over with trucks. Some of the fighters also recorded themselves shooting people in the street.
Such was slaughter that blood could be seen in sand next to piles of bodies in satellite images from space, according to the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
