The leader of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, welcomed on Tuesday US-backed cease-fire talks in Switzerland, penned in for next month.

"I appreciate the efforts exerted by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland in organizing these crucial talks," Dagalo wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The discussions, which aim to stop the violence in Sudan, are slated for August 14. 

"We are ready to engage in these talks constructively and look forward to them being a significant step towards peace, stability, and the establishment of a new Sudanese state based on justice, equality and federal governance," Dagalo added.     

Sudan crisis leaves tens of thousands dead as UN documents 'disturbing' violations 

The ongoing Sudanese civil war broke out in April last year between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Abdel-Fattah Burhan. The Sudanese army has not yet commented on the US-led cease-fire initiative, which had been announced earlier on Tuesday.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists Tuesday that the goal of the talks is to "get the parties back to the table," adding that the dialogue is "the best shot that we have right now at getting a nationwide cessation of violence." 

The conflict has uprooted millions of people in Sudan and sparked fears of famine, with the death toll from the hostilities in the tens of thousands.  

Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces have been accused of war crimes, such as indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas. The RSF in particular has been accused of carrying out ethnic killings in the Darfur region.   

The UN's International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan urged the international community on Tuesday to end the war, and said it "documented disturbing patterns of grave human rights violations during its three-week mission to neighboring Chad."  

The fact-finding mission said it had interviewed Sudanese survivors in Chad for almost three weeks between late June and mid-July. 

"The refugee community the Mission met described the violence they individually encountered that led them to flee Sudan," the UN mission said. "They detailed firsthand accounts of horrific acts of killings, sexual violence including gang rape, arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, looting, the burning of houses, and the use of child soldiers."

How did previous Sudan cease-fire talks play out? 

An indirect dialogue between the RSF and Sudanese army was held earlier this month in Switzerland. UN chief Antonio Guterres's personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, hailed those talks as "encouraging."  

The army and RSF also met last year in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to end the war, but those talks collapsed. Those talks were facilitated by not only Saudi Arabia but also the US. 

wd/jsi (Reuters, AFP)