A Ceasefire Designed to Ratify the Siege
The RSF has accepted Washington's 90-day truce — and rejected the withdrawal that would give it meaning. A pause that freezes today's map is not a step toward peace; it is the siege of El Obeid, notarized.
The shape of US envoy Massad Boulos's plan is now public: a 90-day humanitarian truce, political dialogue, a comprehensive ceasefire, reconstruction. The RSF's answer, delivered this week, is a masterclass in diplomatic arithmetic: yes to a three-month unconditional truce with UN-supervised aid in Darfur, Kordofan, Ed Damazin, and the Nuba Mountains — no to any withdrawal, gradual or partial, from captured territory in North Darfur and North Kordofan, which it plainly calls its military gains. It garnishes the refusal with demands designed for Western ears: exclusion of Islamists, ICC cooperation, independent investigations. The army's council demands full withdrawal to May 2023 lines. Boulos himself has cautioned that "recent claims suggesting key issues had been fully accepted were inaccurate." Meanwhile the RSF's drones continue over El Obeid, and its forces hold every road but one.
Assessment: A truce without withdrawal converts the RSF's siege lines into an internationally acknowledged status quo — which is precisely why it was accepted. The test of the Boulos process is one clause: does any signed text require the El Obeid ring to open, with verification, before aid flows elsewhere? If not, the 90 days become the RSF's resupply window and the city's countdown. Watch the eastern road; it remains the war's most honest indicator.