2023-04-21 06:00:54
On Thursday, the United Nations called for a truce in Sudan “for at least 3 days” on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, to allow an outlet for the Sudanese suffering under the weight of intense battles between the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
While the international community is trying to extract a cease-fire from the commanders of the army and the Rapid Support Forces in their struggle for power, Al-Burhan warned in a telephone conversation with Al-Jazeera that “there is no choice but a military solution” if the Rapid Resolution Forces do not return to their positions in which they were stationed in December. the past.
At the same time, the army commander stressed his refusal to have any “direct” conversation with Daglo, nicknamed “Hamedti,” hinting that the latter’s personal ambitions to rule Sudan are the main motive for this conflict.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, following a virtual meeting with officials from the African Union, the League of Arab States and other regional organizations, called on the two fighting sides in Sudan to abide by a truce “for at least 3 days” on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which the Sudanese celebrate on Friday.
On Thursday evening, the Sudanese Fiqh Academy announced that “Friday is the first day of Eid al-Fitr.”
Guterres held telephone conversations with Al-Burhan, who also received calls from the presidents of South Sudan and Turkey, the prime minister of Ethiopia, and the foreign ministers of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to the Sudanese army.
The ongoing clashes since April 15, especially in the capital Khartoum and the Darfur region (west), left “more than 330 dead and 3,200 wounded,” according to the World Health Organization.
In Khartoum, a city of more than five million people, families rush out onto the roads to escape air strikes, gunfire and street battles.
“The smell of death and corpses hangs over some neighborhoods in the center of the capital,” said one of the displaced who fled the capital in search of a safer place.
Dozens of kilometers away from the capital, life goes on as normal and houses open to receive the displaced, who arrive in shock, in their cars or on foot for hours, as the price of petrol has risen to ten dollars per liter in one of the poorest countries in the world.
In order to reach a safe place, they were subjected to questions and searches by men stationed at observation points of the Rapid Support Forces and others of the army.
In particular, they had to advance in their march amid corpses on the outskirts of the road, armored vehicles and small vehicles charred after being burned in battles with heavy weapons, and avoid the most dangerous areas from which thick black smoke columns rose.
Since the power struggle that has been lurking for weeks between the two teams turned into a fierce battle on Saturday, the situation seems ambiguous for the 45 million Sudanese.
And the two parties do not stop making promises of truces that have not been fulfilled.
Explosions sounded again Thursday in Khartoum and in El-Obeid, 350 km south of the capital.
In the rubble-strewn streets, it is impossible to know who actually controls the country’s institutions.
Both sides make declarations of victories and accusations against the other. But no one can check what is being circulated on social networks.
Doctors stated that the Air Force, which targets the bases and sites of the Rapid Support Forces deployed in populated areas in Khartoum, does not hesitate to drop bombs on hospitals sometimes.
The independent Sudan Doctors Syndicate said that within five days, “seventy percent of 74 hospitals in Khartoum and areas affected by the fighting have stopped serving,” either because they were bombed, lack medical supplies and staff, or because fighters took control of them and expelled paramedics and the wounded.
Most humanitarian organizations have had to suspend aid, which is essential in a country where more than one in three people go hungry in normal times.
Since Saturday in Khartoum, many families have used up their last supplies and are wondering when supply trucks will be able to enter the city.
Three WFP staff were killed in Darfur at the start of the fighting. The United Nations no longer counts the “looting and attacks” on its stocks and staff, and it condemns “sexual violence against humanitarian workers.”
Amid this chaos, the Egyptian army spokesman announced Thursday morning that three planes arrived Wednesday from Sudan, carrying the majority of the Egyptian military who were on a mission in Sudan.
He stressed “the health and safety of all the Egyptian personnel who arrived in the homeland, as well as those present in the Defense Office of the Egyptian Embassy in Khartoum.”
On Thursday, the US Department of Defense announced that the United States is in the process of sending military personnel to the region in anticipation of a possible evacuation of its embassy staff in Khartoum.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 people have fled the fighting in Sudan to seek refuge in neighboring Chad, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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