DUBAI/CAIRO: As warring military groups reached another truce in a string of agreements that have failed to end the fighting, air strikes decimated the Sudanese capital and killed people on Saturday.
The third month of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has yet to produce a clear victor.
According to the UN, the violence has caused 2.2 million Sudanese to flee their homes and plunged the war-torn Darfur area into a “humanitarian calamity.” According to Sudan’s health minister, it has left over 3,000 people dead and over 6,000 wounded.
The United States and Saudi Arabia announced late on Saturday that the two groups had reached an agreement on a new 72-hour truce that would start on Sunday morning. Previous cease-fires have not been able to put an end to violence entirely.
In Khartoum and its nearby cities Omdurman and Bahri, the army enjoys the edge of air power while the RSF has established itself in civilian areas. The army seems to increase its airstrikes on Friday and Saturday, striking multiple residential communities.
The army’s chief general, Yassir Al-Atta, issued a warning to residents to avoid the residences that the RSF had occupied on Friday. To applause, he said, “Because at this point, we’ll attack them anywhere.” He appeared to disregard attempts at mediation by saying, “Between us and these rebels are bullets.”
The Khartoum health ministry has validated local volunteers’ reports that 25 homes were demolished and 17 persons, including five children, were murdered in the southern Khartoum neighbourhood of Mayo on Saturday.
The onslaught was the most recent in a string of air and artillery assaults on the underdeveloped and highly populated area of the city, where the majority of citizens cannot afford to leave.
AIR STRIKES
Late on Friday, the local resistance committee declared al-Lammab in western Khartoum a “operations zone” and said that 13 people had been killed by shelling there. In the afternoon, residents in southern and western Khartoum reported further airstrikes.
In the Nile, west of Khartoum, the RSF claimed to have shot down an army warplane on Saturday.
A local reported seeing smoke plumes rising close to gasoline storage in Southern Khartoum, and a video supplied by Reuters confirmed this.
According to the local committee in the Beit al-Mal area, airstrikes continued on Friday into Saturday in central and southern Omdurman, damaging homes and leaving one person dead.
According to locals, a Friday airstrike in the Sharq el-Nil neighbourhood resulted in the deaths of three family members.
More than 270,000 people have fled El-Geneina in West Darfur over the border to Chad after more than 1,000 people were murdered in attacks that locals and the US blamed on the RSF and affiliated militias.
Reports that Chadian forces had engaged in combat with the RSF were refuted by a military source in Chad and a local authority in Adre, Chad, where many people who were fleeing took safety.
According to the administration, Chadian President General Mahamat Idriss Deby travelled to the region to see the mounting humanitarian disaster and enforce the border’s closure.
The conflict in Khartoum has forced inhabitants to ration food and shut off access to electricity, water, and healthcare for the millions who are still there. They mention extensive plundering.
