US President Donald Trump has said he would start "working" on the war in Sudan, after visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked him to help end the conflict.
"His majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan," Trump said at a Saudi-US business forum on Wednesday.
"It was not on my charts to be involved in, I thought it was just something that was crazy and out of control," he added.
"But I just see how important that is to you, and to a lot of your friends in the room, Sudan. And we're going to start working on Sudan."
Since its outbreak in April 2023, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced nearly 12 million.
Washington has urged the warring parties to finalise a truce, while Trump's own Africa envoy Massad Boulos on Saturday told the AFP news agency the war in Sudan was the "the world's biggest humanitarian crisis."
But Trump himself has barely commented on it, focusing instead on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine in his pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump says he has solved eight conflicts since returning to office in January.
'There's a place on Earth called Sudan'
His promise to start working on the conflict reflects his close relationship with the de facto Saudi leader, whom he hosted at the White House for a lavish visit on Tuesday.
The Saudi crown prince believes Trump's direct pressure is needed to break a logjam in talks to end more than two and a half years of war, pointing to his work to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza last month, five people familiar with the matter said.
The Saudi de facto ruler appeared to appeal to the US president's view of himself as a peacemaker, according to Trump's account.
"He mentioned Sudan yesterday, and he said, 'Sir, you're talking about a lot of wars, but there's a place on Earth called Sudan, and it's horrible what's happening,'" Trump said.
For Saudi Arabia, a resolution to the conflict is linked to national security, with hundreds of kilometres of Sudanese coastline lying opposite the kingdom's Red Sea coast.
Trump said his administration began working on the issue half an hour after the crown prince explained its importance.
Darfur states under RSF control
Following the RSF seizure of Al Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, last month, fighting between the paramilitary group and the Sudanese army has spread to new fronts, particularly to the Kordofan region in central and southern Sudan.
The group controls all five Darfur states, out of Sudan’s 18 states, while the main army holds most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
Darfur makes up about one-fifth of Sudan’s territory, but most of the country’s 50 million people live in army-held areas.
