Sudan – At least 59 civilians, including three aid workers, have been killed in ongoing fighting in Sudan, including in Khartoum, where tensions between paramilitaries and the army have escalated into clashes, airstrikes and media threats. Gunshots and explosions were heard in the capital on Sunday. However, both parties have announced the opening of humanitarian corridors.
clashes continue in sudan . For the second day in a row, the fighting pits the Sudanese army against a powerful paramilitary force, in the context of a power struggle between the two generals in command since the 2021 coup. The results of the clashes have left at least 59 dead , including three aid workers.
In addition, “dozens” of fighters have been mowed down by bullets, rockets and other projectiles fired from tanks or planes. since Saturday morningreports a network of pro-democracy doctors, which accounts for more than 600 wounded.
Street battles and armored vehicles along the highways impede any movement in the capital Khartoum, where armed men roam past civilians seeking refuge.
On all sides, columns of smoke rise in the center of the city, where the main state institutions are located. “It is very worrying, it seems that it will not calm down quickly,” said Ahmed Seif, who lives with his wife and three children in east Khartoum. He fears that his building has been hit by gunfire, like many others, but he says he is “afraid to go out and check” for fear of stray bullets and men in uniform on the streets.
In the Sudanese capital, the night was long. “The explosions and the shooting have not stopped,” Ahmed Hamid told AFP, in the northern suburbs of Khartoum.
According to witnesses, the combat with heavy weapons, in the northern suburbs of Khartoum as well as in the south of the capital, is an opposition to the army of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), made up of thousands of former Darfur war militiamen who have become official auxiliaries to regular troops.
Witnesses also reported artillery fire in Kassala, on the country’s east coast.
Three aid workers murdered
In addition, three World Food Program (WFP) aid workers have been killed in fighting in Sudan, the UN envoy to the country announced on Sunday. They lost their lives “on Saturday while doing their job in North Darfur,” in the west near Chad, Volker Perthes said in a statement.
This anouncement was broadcast on Twitter by WFP in Sudan . The WFP, in the process, announced to suspend its operations in the country.
The Army and the paramilitaries, who have been facing each other since Saturday in Sudan, announced that they would open “humanitarian corridors” on Sunday at 14:00 GMT to evacuate the wounded “for three hours”, maintaining on both sides a “right of response in case of non-compliance”.
Conflict between two generals
The situation had been dormant for weeks, preventing any political arrangement in a country that is trying, since the popular revolt that overthrew Omar al-Bashir in 2019, organize its first free elections after 30 years of dictatorship.
During the coup, which ended the democratic transition in October 2021, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and FSR chief Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, appeared together as a common front to overthrow the civilian power.
However, then the rivalry between the two generals began and, simmering for weeks, finally broke out in Khartoum, which dawned on Saturday, April 15, to the sounds of explosions and fighting. Rifles, artillery and combat planes were used in the capital and in several cities of this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world and ravaged by decades of war.
The international community is increasing calls for a ceasefire. The most recent was that of Pope Francis, who called to “pray so that arms are laid down.” The Arab League and the African Union, where the greats of Sudanese politics sit, had to meet urgently.
Hard to know what holds what
Impossible in the state to know which force supports what. The FSR announced that they had seized the airport on Saturday, but the army denied this. The FSR also said that it would occupy the presidential palace. The army has also denied and above all claims to maintain the headquarters of its General Staff, one of the main power complexes in Khartoum.
As for television, both parties also claim to have taken it. In the surroundings, the residents denounce continuous clashes while on the air -as during the coup- only patriotic songs are broadcast without any commentary.
Because the open war between the generals is also in the media: on Saturday, Hemedti gave interviews on television channels in the Gulf, of which several States are his great allies, multiplying the insults against his rival, General Burhane, who has not appeared until now.
Hemedti has continued to demand the departure of “Burhane the criminal”, while the Army published a “wanted notice” against Hemedti, a “fugitive criminal”, on his Facebook account.
The two men, however, answered the phone when UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called them to demand “an immediate end to the violence” and also urged Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, a highly influential neighbor. , to act because since Saturday in Cairo a video has circulated that shows several of its soldiers apparently in the hands of men from the RSF.
with AFP and original note on France24.fr
