Envoys from the European Union, African Union and key Arab and Western powers will gather in Brussels on Thursday aiming to forge a single road map to end Sudan’s 14-month civil war, EU officials said.
The one-day meeting—billed as the fourth session of an “advisory group” that tries to synchronise overlapping peace efforts—will bring together the EU, AU, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, United Nations, and the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United States and Britain.
Organisers said the agenda centres on a draft “Brussels Framework” that would:
- mesh the Saudi- and U.S.-brokered Jeddah cease-fire text with African Union and IGAD proposals,
- create monitored humanitarian corridors into Darfur and Kordofan, and
- threaten coordinated sanctions against commanders who block relief or refuse talks.
Sudan’s warring parties—Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan’s army (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces headed by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—were invited to endorse the idea of a single negotiating forum but are not expected to attend in person, diplomats said.
Talks open at 10 a.m. local time inside the EU’s External Action Service compound, with a joint communiqué and press briefing pencilled in for early evening. Any conclusions will feed directly into a U.N. Security Council briefing scheduled for Friday in New York, according to meeting documents shared with participants.
Sudan’s conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has killed thousands, displaced more than eight million people and splintered the country into rival zones of control. Previous donor and mediation conferences—including one in London in April—have failed to halt the fighting, but EU officials say Thursday’s gathering is the first to put all major facilitators “under one roof” with a mandate to speak with one voice.
