KHARTOUM: Gun battles and explosions continue to rock Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, despite the latest truce formally agreed between warring parties, as the United Nations warns that the country is near its “breaking point”.
The bloodshed and chaos, now in their third week, have prompted tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to neighbouring countries, including Egypt, Chad and the Central African Republic, sparking a humanitarian crisis. Over 500 people have been reported killed since fighting erupted on 15 April between Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Millions of Sudanese around Khartoum and beyond have sheltered in their homes with dwindling water and food and frequent power cuts, while fighter jets conducting bombing raids have drawn heavy anti-aircraft fire.
While foreign countries have evacuated thousands of their nationals by air, road and sea, some 50,000 Sudanese have fled overland to neighbours, according to the UN. The UN’s refugee agency has been handing out emergency food rations to displaced families who fled the violence with little belongings, sitting in the sand in the shade of trees.
Sudan’s turmoil has seen aid workers killed, hospitals bombed, humanitarian facilities looted, and foreign aid organizations forced to suspend most of their operations. Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths is heading to the region to help in bringing relief to the millions of affected people “whose lives have been ruined overnight”.
At least 528 persons have been killed and around 4,600 injured in the violence, according to the health ministry of Sudan, but the actual death toll is feared to be much higher.
Fierce fighting spread across Sudan
Fierce fighting has spread across Sudan, including to the troubled Darfur region, with at least 96 people reportedly killed in El Geneina, West Darfur. Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces emerged from the infamous Janjaweed that was launched in a scorched-earth campaign in the Darfur region in 2003 by former strongman Omar al-Bashir, who faces war crimes and genocide charges.
The Rapid Support Forces include fighters who have seen war in Yemen, where they were sent to back a campaign supporting the government against Houthi rebels. Further complicating the battlefield situation in Sudan, Central Reserve Police are being deployed on the side of the army across the capital to “protect citizens’ properties” from looting.
The UN has warned that the unrest could plunge millions more into famine in a country where 16 million people already need aid to stave off famine. Only 16% of Khartoum’s health facilities are functioning, says the UN World Health Organization.
The fighting is pushing Sudan’s already ailing health sector towards “disaster”, warns the WHO’s regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed al-Mandhari. He warns of the growing threat of malaria, cholera and other diseases as the rainy season nears and clean water supplies are becoming scarce.
