2023-04-17 22:04:00
Explosions and machine gun bursts resounded in the Sudanese capital on Monday in the third straight day of fighting between the Army and a paramilitary group and amid feverish diplomatic efforts to try to contain the violence.
At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured since the clashes began last Saturday, the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, told reporters in Khartoum, the country’s capital, today.
The two rival sides fight in densely populated urban areas with tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons. Warplanes were flying over Khartoum today, and anti-aircraft shells lit up the sky as night fell.
Sudan’s medical union said at least 97 civilians have been killed in the crossfire. between the two rival sides, fighting densely populated urban areas with heavy machine guns, tanks, artillery and airstrikes.
The civilian death toll is estimated to be much higher, because there are many bodies on the streets around the center of Khartoum, the capital, that no one can reach due to the clashes, the Sudan Doctors Union said.
There has been no official information on the number of fighters killed in the fighting.which face the forces of two generals and are also fought in many other cities and areas of the great Arab country in northeast Africa.
The Pope is following the events in Sudan with concern, “I am very close to that people who have already suffered so much, that they lay down their arms and dialogue prevail.” pic.twitter.com/xmKi37LPvw
— Vatican News (@vaticannews_es) April 16, 2023
The civilian death toll is estimated to be much higher, because there were many bodies in the streets around the center of Khartoum, the capital, that no one can reach due to the clashes, the Sudan Doctors Union said.
There has been no official information on the number of fighters killed in the fighting, which pits the forces of two generals against each other and is also taking place in many other cities and areas of the large Arab country in northeast Africa.
Due to the situation, the UN has suspended its operations in Sudan, the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said today amid feverish diplomatic efforts to end the violence.
The UN “is not going to ask its staff to go to work when security is clearly not guaranteed,” spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said after a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the crisis.
At the end of the meeting, the three African members of the council – Ghana, Gabon and Mozambique – issued a joint statement in which they called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
Earlier, Guterres said that a further escalation could be “devastating for the country and the region.”
But Jartumwrapped in a strong smell of gunpowder and partially deprived of water and electricity, the inhabitants were sheltered in their homes on Monday, the AFP news agency reported.
In the center of the city, thick black smoke billowed over the main military headquarters, which is the focus of heavy fighting.
Close to there, at least 88 students and staff members have been trapped in the library of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Khartoum since the start of the fightingsaid one of the students in a video posted online.
One student was killed when caught up in clashes outside the university and another was injuredsaid the student in the video, adding that the group has no food or water and showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor.
The few open supermarkets warned that they will only be able to continue operating for a few more days, due to a lack of supplies, and the hospitals that receive the wounded are running out of supplies.
Even in a country with a long history of civil strife, the scenes of fighting in the capital and the adjoining city, Omdurman, across the Nile River, are unprecedented.
The unrest comes just days before the Sudanese celebrated Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.the Islamic month of fasting.
The reason for the conflict
The clashes are part of a power struggle between General Abdel Fatah al Burhan, commander of the Armed Forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the Rapid Support Forces. (FAR), a paramilitary group.
The two generals are former allies who jointly orchestrated a military coup in October 2021 that derailed Sudan’s transition to democracy.
violence now threatens to plunge the country into broader civil conflict just as the Sudanese were trying to revive the drive for democratic civilian rule after decades of military dictatorship.
Both generals have said they will not negotiate a truce and ignored calls to demobilize their forces.even from the countries that support them.
Al Burhan and Daglo, each supported by tens of thousands of soldiers, They demand mutual surrender.
Since its independence, Sudan has suffered a number of conflicts that have contaminated the country with landmines and other explosive remnants of war.
The states of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur remain affected by explosive hazards.#MineActionCannotWait #IMAD2023 pic.twitter.com/lUOsIFTcrT
— United Nations Sudan (@UN_Sudan) April 4, 2023
Daglo, whose forces grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Sudan’s western Darfur region, sHe introduced himself on Twitter Monday as a defender of democracy, calling Burhan an aggressor and a “radical Islamist.”
Fighting has been particularly fierce around the main bases of each side, located in the middle of civilian areas and in strategic government buildings.
The Army claimed on Monday to have taken control of the main television building in Omdurman, repelling an attempt by the FAR to seize it.
LSudan’s state television resumed its broadcasts on Monday.
The Army scored a major achievement last Sunday when the RSF said it had abandoned its main headquarters and base, in Omdurman, after it was bombarded from the air by the Army.
The last Sunday, The UN World Food Program (WFP) suspended its operations in Sudan after three of its employees were killed in fighting in Darfur. On Monday, the International Rescue Committee said it would halt its work as well, with the exception of a refugee camp in south-eastern Sudan.
Diplomats from around the world urged the parties to stop fighting, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UN Secretary General António Guterres.
The Arab League, the African Union (AU), the United Kingdom demanded an “immediate cessation” of the violence.
“The people in Sudan want the military to go back to the barracks,” Blinken said Monday. at a G7 meeting in Japan.
“They want democracy. They want a civilian-run government, Sudan needs to get back on that path,” he added.
Guterres said Monday that a further escalation could be “devastating for the country and the region.”
what do the doctors say
Doctors and humanitarian organizations said some neighborhoods in Khartoum have been without water or electricity since Saturday.
Doctors reported power outages in operating rooms and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)“several of Khartoum’s nine hospitals that receive wounded civilians no longer have supplies of blood, transfusion sets and other vital materials.”
The patients, some of them children, and their relatives “have no food or water”said a network of doctors.
The Army and the FAR were also fighting this Monday in most of the main urban centers of the country, including in Darfur and parts of the north and east, along the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia.
Battles broke out around a strategic airbase in Merowe, some 350 kilometers northwest of the capital, on Monday, with both sides claiming control of the facility.
#civilian #deaths #war #generals #Sudan