By Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 - The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday pledged to donate $500 million to a U.N. fund for humanitarian aid for Sudan, amid a U.S. push to renew efforts towards a truce in the conflict that has devastated the country.
Sudan has accused the UAE of arming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which have been fighting the Sudanese army in the civil war that broke out in April 2023 - a charge the UAE denies but U.N. experts and U.S. lawmakers have found credible.
Speaking at a donor event in Washington, UAE state minister Lana Nusseibeh said her country wanted to see a truce in the conflict, without referring to her country’s alleged support for the RSF.
Nusseibeh has previously said the UAE condemns violations by both warring parties and wants to see an independent, civilian-led government in Sudan.
The U.S. special envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, said he expected a total of $1.5 billion of new funding to be pledged at the Washington event, including an additional $200 million for Sudan from the United States. Other states represented at the event did not make clear promises of new aid.
PUSHING FOR RAMADAN TRUCE
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and spread famine across the vast country. Fighting has raged in several areas in the past few months, with the latest frontline in the southern Kordofan region, where the army has claimed progress in recent days.
Boulos said Washington was pushing for a truce to be agreed upon by the parties in Sudan ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on February 17.
Boulos admitted that progress had been disappointing since President Donald Trump in November said he would intervene to stop the conflict at the request of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“We would have hoped to achieve peace much, much earlier,” said Boulos. “We’ve amplified our efforts and yet we haven’t really achieved that much yet, in terms of the humanitarian truce, which was the first item on the milestone roadmap.”
Officials from Egypt and Saudi Arabia would meet U.S. and UAE officials as part of a so-called Quad grouping that is working on a U.S. peace proposal, Boulos said, adding that the text of a peace plan had been accepted by those parties.
The warring parties themselves are yet to agree to a temporary truce or to the U.S. peace plan, but Boulos said he hoped it would ultimately be presented to the U.N. Security Council and then to Trump’s Board of Peace.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
