KHARTOUM, Sudan / ISTANBUL / UNITED NATIONS – In a rare display of diplomatic openness amid Sudan's spiraling civil war, the government in Port Sudan declared on Saturday its willingness to partner with the United Nations to foster peace, stabilize security, and expedite humanitarian aid to millions trapped in conflict zones. The announcement, made during high-level talks in the Red Sea port city, comes as the nearly three-year-old conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has pushed the country deeper into what the UN describes as the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe, with famine officially declared in multiple areas and fresh reports of mass killings in Darfur.
The overture was delivered by Prime Minister Kamil Eltayeb Idris during a closed-door meeting with Ramtane Lamamra, the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Sudan and a veteran Algerian diplomat. According to the official Sudanese News Agency (SUNA), the discussions focused on the political, security, and humanitarian situation following the fall of El-Fasher, the North Darfur capital that was captured by RSF forces on October 26, 2025, after an 18-month siege. Idris, appointed in May 2025 by SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, reaffirmed Khartoum’s commitment to a government-prepared roadmap for national reconciliation, including a technocratic transitional administration and eventual elections, while pledging full coordination with UN agencies to achieve security, peace, and unimpeded aid delivery.
Lamamra, who has been shuttling across the region since his appointment in November 2023, acknowledged the UN’s respect for Sudan’s sovereignty but stressed the unprecedented scale of the crisis. He described the situation as one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in the world and called for inclusive dialogue to prevent total state collapse.
The meeting’s timing is critical. Just days earlier, a UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis confirmed famine in El-Fasher and Kadugli in South Kordofan, with 21.2 million Sudanese—nearly half the population—facing acute food insecurity. Although the figure is slightly lower than earlier estimates of 24.6 million, thanks to localized harvests in government-held areas, the outlook remains grim without immediate and sustained aid access.
El-Fasher’s fall has become a symbol of the war’s brutality. Once the SAF’s last stronghold in Darfur, the city endured relentless drone strikes, artillery bombardment, and a suffocating siege that included a 57-kilometer earthen berm built by the RSF to block supplies. When RSF troops finally entered, credible reports from survivors, Amnesty International, and UN human rights monitors described systematic atrocities: summary executions of men suspected SAF supporters, widespread sexual violence targeting non-Arab communities such as the Masalit, and the looting and destruction of the city’s only remaining functional hospital, where hundreds of patients and medical staff died.
The wider conflict, which erupted on April 15, 2023, over a power struggle between General al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”), has killed tens of thousands directly and many more from hunger and disease. Independent estimates now exceed 150,000 total deaths. More than 8.8 million people are internally displaced, with another 3.5 million having fled abroad, creating Africa’s largest displacement crisis. Neighbouring Chad and South Sudan bear the heaviest refugee burden, while spillover clashes near the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border area threaten broader regional instability.
Foreign involvement has prolonged the stalemate. The United Arab Emirates has faced repeated accusations from the United States and UN experts of funneling weapons to the RSF through proxy networks, while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Russia have provided varying degrees of support to the SAF. Multiple rounds of talks in Jeddah, Geneva, and Addis Ababa have collapsed, undermined by mutual distrust and competing external agendas.
In early 2025, the RSF deepened ties with the SPLM-North rebel faction and announced a parallel “Sudan Founding Charter” government in Darfur, while the SAF briefly retook parts of Khartoum in March before losing momentum. Recent RSF advances toward el-Obeid and the seizure of Bara in North Kordofan have displaced tens of thousands more and raised fears of permanent partition.
Funding for humanitarian operations remains critically low. The 2025 UN appeal for $4.2 billion to assist 21 million people is less than 30 percent funded, hampered by global donor fatigue and sharp cuts from major contributors. On November 24, the RSF declared a unilateral three-month “humanitarian truce,” but the SAF rejected it as propaganda and vowed no negotiations involving UAE-linked mediators.
Despite the bleak landscape, Sudanese civil society continues to resist. Resistance committees, women’s groups, and the broad-based Taqaddum coalition insist on Sudanese-led dialogue free from military domination or foreign manipulation. In late October, thousands marched in Omdurman to denounce RSF atrocities and demand civilian rule, echoing the spirit of the 2019 revolution that toppled Omar al-Bashir only to see its gains erased by the current warlords.
Prime Minister Idris’s public commitment to UN cooperation, if translated into concrete actions such as opening cross-line aid corridors, protecting civilians, and joining inclusive political talks, could mark a turning point. UN envoy Lamamra is working alongside the African Union and the Arab League to revive a coordinated peace framework first proposed in Baghdad in May 2025.
For Sudan’s 47.5 million people, from the rubble of Khartoum to the starving camps of Darfur, the margin between survival and catastrophe grows thinner by the day. As one displaced woman from Tawila told reporters, “We survived genocide once before. Without real peace, we will either flee again or perish here.” The international community’s response in the coming weeks, more than any single diplomatic meeting, will determine whether Sudan descends further into abyss or begins a long, painful climb toward recovery.
