2023-05-06 05:01:00
The fighting continued to be intense this Friday in Khartoum –Sudan’s capital– and in other areas of the country, despite the fact that it was the second day of the week-long truce signed by the contending sides.
The Sudanese Army continues to seek to seize positions held by the powerful Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitary group in central Khartoum, resuming fighting near the Presidential Palace, explained residents of the area, who heard explosions and the sound of heavy weapons. Meanwhile, fighter jets were flying over North Khartoum, where the FAR is positioned and a fierce battle is being fought.
“Our units are completely ready to face a new incursion”, said the Armed Forces when observing that members of the FAR are concentrating in North Khartoum and in the east of the capital, ignoring the humanitarian pause.
child victims
The Sudanese Doctors Union said one of the worst attacks in recent days against civilians occurred in the town of Al Obeid, southwest of Khartoum, on Thursday. Clashes between the two sides in the capital of North Kordofan, one of the main ones in the conflict, killed at least ten civilians — including seven children — and injured another twenty.
“The fighting continues and the number of dead and wounded is expected to rise. Al Obeid Hospital is now suffering from power cuts and the generators are running out of fuel with the accumulation of injuries and the lack of blood bags,” the union said on its Facebook account.
According to union figures, seven out of ten hospitals in conflict zones have stopped working, while the rest do it totally or partially. And they recalled that this “war” is taking the lives of the Sudanese directly and indirectly “due to the lack of health services, the impossibility of obtaining them and the danger of spreading diseases, amid the slow response of the international community to the repeated calls for medical and food assistance, and to exert pressure to obtain safe passages”.
The displaced
The doctors’ union noted that the “return of battles to the city of Al Obeid widens the scope of the absurd war to include the capital, Khartoum with its three cities, and the burning city of Al Geneina in West Darfurin addition to the security chaos and absence of the Government in the city of Zalingui, in the state of Central Darfur”.
These are the current main foci of the conflict in Sudan, since several parts of the African country live in relative calm, such as the state of the North and Port Sudan, in the east, which has become a kind of provisional capital to which it is Humanitarian aid arriving dropper, and where the UN mission and some embassies have moved.
The deputy head of the Chamber of Transportation, Bashir Abdel Salam, reported that the movement of displaced persons from Khartoum to other states or neighboring countries has been reduced in the last two days, because the clashes were concentrated in only a few areas of the capital.
“There has been a decrease in the flight of citizens from Khartoum to neighboring countries in the last two days,” Salam said, noting that buses heading to the crossings with Egypt used to number 50 a day, while now they have been reduced. at 35.
Egypt remains the country that is receiving the most Sudanese through land border crossings with more than 52,000 to date, according to the UN.
WHO data
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimated that at least 190 children have been killed and another 1,700 injured since the conflict broke out three weeks ago. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that at least 551 people have died since April 15. Although it is believed that the real figures could be higher, since they only include cases that reached medical establishments to be treated.
Human rights organizations are reporting various types of human rights violations, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians, sexual violence, looting and widespread criminality.
Among the most affected infrastructures are the medical ones, from primary care centers to hospitals, which have been the object of attacks of different types with 28 reported incidents.
The WHO indicated that, as a consequence, only 16 percent of medical facilities in the capital Khartoum — the urban area hardest hit by fighting — are operating at full capacity and 60 percent have stopped working completely. The rest provide partial care.
Eight people have been killed in attacks on health facilities, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. Fighters are preventing people from accessing medical care, looting, forcibly occupying facilities or carrying out violent attacks against them, the spokeswoman told reporters in Geneva.
The refugee drama
The United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) requested that no country in the world return Sudanese to their country, be they refugees or migrants, due to the extreme insecurity and the risk that this may pose to their lives.
According to the agency’s figures, there are 845,000 Sudanese refugees, the vast majority in neighboring countries, but also in Europe, North America and Malaysia, in addition to an unknown number who are migrant workers.
“Refugees and migrants abroad, even if they are not part of the asylum system, should not be returned or expelled, even if they have expired visas or passports”UNHCR Director of International Protection, Elizabeth Tan, told reporters in Geneva. She added that the governments of Sudan’s neighboring countries are being talked to to keep their borders open and that the authorities are ensuring that they will do so.
In the first three weeks of the conflict, 113,000 Sudanese have fled the country. Most came to Chad from Darfur and others are trying to enter Egypt from Khartoum. According to UNHCR, the situation is difficult on the border with Egypt with a large number of Sudanese waiting to cross into the neighboring country: they must first complete the procedures established by the national authorities.
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