Tens of thousands of people uprooted inside Sudan
Khartoum:
Bombing warplanes pounded Khartoum on Saturday with heavy anti-aircraft fire, violating a new ceasefire as fierce fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitary forces entered a third week.
More than 500 people have been killed since fighting broke out on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his number two, Mohammed Hamdan Dagallo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF).
They have agreed to several ceasefires, but none have held effectively as the civilian death toll continues to rise and chaos reigns in Khartoum, a city of five million people, where many are without food, water and electricity. Locked in their homes due to lack of food.
Thousands of people have been displaced within Sudan or have embarked on difficult journeys to neighboring Chad, Egypt, South Sudan and Ethiopia to escape the fighting.
“There is no right to fight for power when the country is falling apart,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.
The latest three-day ceasefire – due to expire at midnight (2200 GMT) on Sunday – was agreed on Thursday following mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations.
“We woke up once again to the sound of fighter jets and anti-aircraft gunfire throughout our area,” a witness in south Khartoum told AFP.
Another said fighting had continued since morning, especially around the state broadcaster’s headquarters in Omdurman, the capital’s twin city.
Other witnesses reported machine gun fire across the Blue Nile in Khartoum north, while gunfire was heard in Burri, east of the city.
Smoke spread over the area around Khartoum airport.
trading flaw
As the fighting escalated, rival generals – who seized power in a 2021 coup – took aim at each other in the media, with Burhan calling the RSF a militia aimed at “destroying Sudan” and Daglo called the army chief a “traitor”. ,
Guterres threw his support behind African-led mediation efforts.
“My appeal is that everything be done to support the African-led initiative for peace in Sudan,” he told Al Arabiya.
The health ministry said on Saturday that at least 528 people had died and 4,599 were injured in the violence, but these figures were likely to be incomplete.
The United Nations said some 75,000 have been displaced by fighting in the states of Khartoum and Blue Nile, North Kordofan as well as the western region of Darfur.
The fighting has also triggered a mass exodus of foreigners and international workers.
On Saturday a boat with about 1,900 evacuees arrived at a Saudi naval base in Jeddah, the latest evacuees to have arrived in the kingdom by sea after crossing the Red Sea from Port Sudan.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry said they were among some 4,880 people who have been brought to safety in the kingdom.
A US-organized convoy carrying US citizens, local workers and citizens of allied countries arrived in Port Sudan on Saturday to join the exodus across the Red Sea, the State Department said.
The Pentagon said it had deployed “US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to support the air and land evacuation routes that the Americans are using.”
Britain said it was ending its evacuation flights after airlifting more than 1,500 people this week.
The World Food Program has said the violence could drive millions into starvation in a country where 15 million people – a third of the population – are already in need of aid to stave off famine.
About 70 percent of hospitals in areas near the fighting have been put out of service and many have been shelled, the doctors’ union said.
‘Incredibly worried’
The United Nations said at least 96 people were reported killed this week in the town of El Jinina in West Darfur state.
“What is happening in Darfur is terrible, societies are falling apart, we see tribes now trying to arm themselves,” Guterres said.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said there were reports of widespread looting, destruction and burning of property, including camps for the displaced.
MSF’s deputy operations manager for Sudan, Sylvain Perron, said the fighting had forced the agency to halt almost all of its activities in West Darfur.
“We are incredibly concerned about the impact of this violence on those who have already lived through waves of violence in previous years.”
Darfur is still battling a war that began in 2003, when hardline President Omar al-Bashir unleashed Janjaweed militias recruited mainly from Arab pastoral tribes, against ethnic minority rebels.
The scorched earth campaign killed at least 300,000 people and displaced some 2.5 million, according to UN figures, and Bashir has been accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court.
Janjaweed later evolved into RSF, which was formally formed in 2013.
The 2021 coup that brought Burhan and Dagalo to power derailed the transition to alternative civilian rule that began after Bashir was ousted by mass protests in 2019.
The two generals later dropped out, most recently over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)