KHARTOUM: Opposing factions in Sudan have agreed to extend the three-day ceasefire just before it expires.
The extension of the ceasefire comes after intensive diplomatic efforts by regional countries and the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Nations.
Despite the extension in the ceasefire, reports of continuous heavy fighting emerged in the capital Khartoum.
The preceding ceasefire allowed thousands of people to flee to safety as dozens of countries intervened to evacuate their citizens.
During the two weeks of fighting between the Sudanese army and the rival paramilitary group, Rapid Response Forces (RSF), have left hundreds, mostly civilians, dead.
The ceasefire was expected to end at midnight local time (22:00 GMT).
Early on Thursday , the Sudanese regular army agreed to extend the ceasefire and the RSF followed suit hours later.
South Sudan, meanwhile, has offered to host peace talks between the rival factions and Sudan’s army has shown a willingness to send representatives to the talks.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington was “very vigorously working” to extend the ceasefire, adding that while deficient, it had reduced violence.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said that the situation could worsen at any moment.
Meanwhile, the RSF and some citizens said that the army had been pounding its positions in Khartoum.
The foreign minister of the civilian government, Maryam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, told the BBC from her residence in Khartoum that civilians were still living in dread despite the ceasefire.
She said that what they call a truce had nothing to do with what was happening and the bombardment by the aeroplanes was taking place almost all day and night.
Fighting had also been going-on in the western Darfur region and other provinces.
At least 512 people, mostly civilians, had been killed since the war broke out and around 4,200 people have been injured, although the actual number of deaths could be much higher.
The World Health Organization said that it expected “many more” deaths due to disease outbreaks and a lack of services.
Health officials said that most hospitals in conflict areas were not functioning, and more than 60 per cent of health facilities in Khartoum were inactive.
Former British foreign secretary David Miliband, who is the head of the International Rescue Committee, said that the international community was neglecting the wider crisis in Sudan in an attempt to evacuate foreign nationals.
“The fact that for the last 10 days, pretty much all the media coverage and the vast bulk of political attention has been on getting out thousands of people and not on the need to tend to millions of people really sticks in the gullet,” he told the BBC.
“Of course, the lives of the thousands who need to evacuate are important, but what about the 45 million who are left behind?”
Reuters quoated an army statement saying that it had taken control of most of Sudan’s regions, but “the situation was a bit complicated in some parts of the capital”.
Foreign nations including the UK had been urging their citizens to leave the country at the earliest.
Jean-Pierre urged American citizens to depart within the next 24 hours.
Evacuations were under way but many foreigners were still stuck in Sudan. Some had attempted to get to the airstrip used for evacuations.
Local civilians continue to flee the capital, where there are problems with food, water and fuel supplies.
The fighting broke out on 15 April due to a bitter power struggle between the regular army and the RSF.
Army commander Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, disagree about the country’s proposed move to civilian rule, particularly the timeframe for the inclusion of 100,000 strong RSF’s into the regular army.
Both factions fear losing power in Sudan because, on both sides, there were men who could end up at the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed in Darfur almost 20 years ago.
