SAUDI Arabia has pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan amid ongoing clashes between two military rivals. The announcement was made on Sunday, with the Saudi state news agency SPA reporting that the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre had committed to providing ‘$100 million worth of various humanitarian aid’ to conflict-torn Sudan.
The relief centre also plans to organise a national donation campaign through the Sahem platform ‘to alleviate the current conditions faced by the Sudanese people.’ Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah, director of King Salman Centre, said the aid would provide relief, humanitarian, and medical aid to Sudanese citizens displaced by the conflict.
‘The assistance emanates from the keenness of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the Crown Prince to stand by the Sudanese people and mitigate the impacts of the crisis in Sudan,’ Al Rabeeah said.
More than 550 people have been killed and thousands injured in fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group since April 15, according to Sudan’s Health Ministry.
Saudi Arabia on Saturday hosted the first face-to-face talks between representatives of the Sudanese army and the RSF in an effort to resolve their dispute. The two sides had been at odds over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces, a key condition of Sudan’s transition agreement with political groups.
Sudan has been without a functioning government since fall 2021, when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s transitional government and declared a state of emergency in a move decried by political forces as a ‘coup.’ The transitional period, which started in August 2019 after the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir, was scheduled to end with elections in early 2024.