UN aid chief Griffiths in Jeddah for Sudan talks as fighting flares

Martin Griffiths, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, looks on during a meeting in Port Sudan, Sudan May 3, 2023. (Reuters)

• A UN official said Griffiths would meet representatives of the two generals at the heart of Sudan’s conflict
• There was no indication that Griffiths would play a direct role in discussions about a possible cease-fire

RIYADH: The UN’s top aid official arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday as Sudan’s warring generals held talks amid growing concerns over the humanitarian situation in Khartoum and beyond.
The generals began talks on Saturday in Jeddah aimed at halting weeks of hostilities, and enabling efforts to safely distribute aid to Sudan’s besieged population.
A spokesman for Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said the purpose of the talks were “to engage in humanitarian issues related to Sudan.”
Griffiths said in Port Sudan last week that he had been informed by the UN’s World Food Programme that six trucks bringing aid to the Darfur region had been “looted en route” Wednesday, “despite assurances of safety and security.”
He called for security guarantees “clearly given by militaries, to protect humanitarian systems to deliver.”
There was no indication that Griffiths would play a direct role in the Jeddah talks, however, and the generals present have said little about their content.
Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdalla said the discussions were on how a truce could “be correctly implemented to serve the humanitarian side.” 
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the op-posing Rapid Support Forces, said on social media only that he welcomed the technical discussions.
Riyadh and Washington have supported the “pre-negotiation talks” and urged the belligerents to “get actively involved.”
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit expressed his support on Sunday for the “indirect negotiations” in order to prevent “an escalation of the current conflict” into a prolonged war “that divides Sudan into warring regions.”
At the same meeting of the bloc in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned of “a slide into a worse and more dangerous security situation for Sudan, its people, neighboring countries and the region.”
Even before the war began about one-third of Sudan’s people required humanitarian assistance, the UN said.
Hopes for international efforts to end fighting have been modest.
“The lowest common denominator of the international community is a cessation of hostilities,” said Sudan researcher Aly Verjee at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg. “But there is no apparent consensus on what to do beyond that initial objective.”
Both sides continue to push for military advantage in the capital and elsewhere, including the long-troubled Darfur region.