Washington: The US State Department announced on Sunday that Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, will visit Addis Abeba on Monday and Tuesday to meet with African leaders and Sudanese civilian parties to discuss ways to put an end to the conflict there.
Conflicting initiatives have made it unclear how the warring parties might be persuaded to negotiate, making diplomatic efforts to stop fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) so far ineffective.
In order to discuss ways to end the conflict, Egypt announced on Sunday that it would also host a summit of Sudan's neighbours on July 13.
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Last month, talks sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia and held in Jeddah were cancelled, and the army criticised an East African-led mediation effort because it accused Kenya of bias.
Residents in El Obeid, southwest of Khartoum, as well as in the south of the capital reported that fighting continued on Sunday between the army and the RSF.
According to Khartoum International Airport, the closure of Sudan's airspace has been extended through July 31 with the exception of flights carrying emergency supplies and people who have permission from the authorities.
The US State Department issued a statement that read: "We call on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to immediately end the fighting and return to the barracks; adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law; and allow unhindered humanitarian access to meet the emergency needs of civilians."
According to the State Department, Phee will meet with civilians in Sudan as well as senior officials from regional governments, the African Union Commission, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development for the East African bloc.
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The Cairo summit on Thursday is intended to "develop effective mechanisms" with neighbouring states to resolve the conflict peacefully, in coordination with other regional or international efforts, according to the Egyptian presidency.
Both the United Arab Emirates, which has close ties to the RSF and is regarded as the Sudanese army's most important foreign ally, and Egypt have not taken a prominent public role in efforts to end the conflict in Sudan.
Additionally, the two nations were absent from negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, led by the US, which ended last month without achieving a durable cease-fire.
Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan's two largest neighbours, have been at odds recently over the building of a sizable hydroelectric dam on Ethiopia's Blue Nile, not far from the border with Sudan.
In addition to the talks in Addis Abeba, which will feature Sudanese delegations as well as civilian parties that co-ruled with the army and RSF after the overthrow of former president Omar Al-Bashir four years ago, negotiations between the heads of former Darfur rebel groups that signed a partial peace agreement in 2020 are anticipated to take place in Chad.
More than 2.9 million people have been displaced by the fighting that started on April 15 in Sudan's capital Khartoum, including nearly 700,000 who have fled to nearby nations, many of which are struggling with poverty and the effects of internal conflict.
According to the most recent data from the International Organisation for Migration, over 255,000 people have entered Egypt.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced the incident. On Saturday, the Sudanese health ministry reported that 22 people had died as a result of a fighter jet attack in Omdurman, which is a part of the larger capital of Sudan.
The army denied responsibility for the strike on Sunday, claiming that its air force had missed targets in Omdurman the day before and that the RSF had mistakenly accused it of causing civilian casualties by bombarding residential areas while fighter jets were in the sky.
To try to drive back RSF troops dispersed throughout Khartoum, Omdurman, and Bahri, the three cities that make up the capital near the confluence of the Nile, the army has primarily relied on airstrikes and heavy artillery.
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Other areas of Sudan have also seen an uptick in violence, including Darfur in the west, where locals claim that the RSF and militias from Arab tribes have been targeting civilians based on their ethnicity, raising concerns that the mass atrocities that occurred there after 2003 will happen again.