2023-05-01 00:00:59
On Sunday night, the three-day truce agreed upon between the army and the Rapid Support Forces to stop the fighting in Sudan ends, as violent clashes continue between the two parties in the capital.
Sudan has plunged into chaos since the bloody struggle for power erupted in mid-April between the army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is nicknamed “Hemedti.”
The war left at least 528 dead and 4,599 wounded, according to figures announced by the Ministry of Health on Saturday, but the toll is likely to be higher.
The two parties to the conflict exchange accusations of violating the armistice, which was extended for three days under international mediation, and ends Sunday at midnight (22:00 GMT).
According to eyewitnesses told AFP, clashes took place near the army headquarters in Khartoum, and the city of Omdurman, west of the capital, was subjected to air strikes.
From the south of Khartoum, an eyewitness said, “There is very fierce fighting and heavy shooting in the street every few minutes since early morning.”
With the battles entering its third week, families in the capital, which has a population of about five million, and its suburbs are still suffering from a lack of food, water, electricity and cash, and many of them are staying at home.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced internally or to neighboring countries, while several foreign and Arab countries are organizing large-scale evacuations.
International and regional powers called for an end to the escalating violence between the two military leaders, but they refused direct talks and exchanged accusations through the media.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged support for African-led mediation.
“The United Nations is intensifying its efforts to help people seeking safety in neighboring countries,” he wrote on Twitter.
The United Nations said that nearly 75,000 people were internally displaced during the first week of fighting, mainly in the states of Khartoum, Northern, Blue Nile, North Kordofan, North, West and South Darfur.
More than 30,000 people fled to Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Central Africa, according to United Nations estimates, which warned that the number of fleeing could reach 270,000 if the fighting continues.
For their part, Arab and foreign countries intensified efforts to evacuate their employees and nationals.
The Sudanese Ministry of Health said that the fighting affected 12 states out of 18 in the country.
And in West Darfur, at least 96 people have been killed since Monday in the city of El Geneina, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which described the situation as “dangerous”.
Looting, destruction and arson are increasing, including inside camps for the displaced, according to Doctors Without Borders, which was forced to “stop almost all of its work in West Darfur” due to the violence, according to Sylvain Perron, the organization’s deputy director in Sudan.
In a statement, Peron warned that his organization was “very concerned about the impact of violence on those who have already suffered waves of violence.”
The Ministry of Health indicated that “the armed tribal conflict caused the destruction of the main hospital in El Geneina and the Ministry of Health, and damaged its property, vehicles and equipment.”
Guterres described the fighting in Darfur as “terrible,” and said, “Society is collapsing, and we see the tribes now trying to arm themselves.”
In a related context, the spokesman for the political process in Sudan, Khaled Omar, said that they are “against war and with one professional and national army that distances itself from politics.”
The spokesman added, in a statement on “Facebook”, today, Sunday: “It is reached by agreement on a comprehensive plan for security and military reform that includes the implementation of the security arrangements stipulated in the Juba Peace Agreement and the integration of rapid support into the Sudanese Armed Forces, through specific timetables and clear mechanisms.”
He added, “We are against war and with a civil democratic transition that takes place only through peaceful political means. We are against the war and against the return of the former regime to control people’s necks again.”
The spokesman pointed out that “some advocates of the continuation of the war deliberately confuse ends and means, simply we are with the unified army, democratic transition and the non-return of the former regime, but we disagree with war as a means to achieve these ends, and we work exclusively to achieve them peacefully, and we see the misery of the arguments of war fans.”
Khaled Omar emphasized that “the advocates of war will only lead the country to destroy it. There is one party that has an interest in its continuation, which are groups from the defunct regime that planned this war and are working to ignite it and continue it.”
(agencies)
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