Fighting touches Khartoum despite new truce

An umpteenth truce not respected. Fighting resounded in Khartoum on Monday night, despite the official entry into force of the week-long truce between the Army and the paramilitaries, which was to allow the passage of civilians and humanitarian aid to Sudan.

Since April 15, the war between the Army loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo It has left a thousand dead and more than a million displaced and refugees.

Fighting usually starts at night, but on Monday afternoon, after the truce officially went into effect at 19:45 GMT, residents of Khartoum’s north-eastern suburbs informed AFP of renewed fighting.

In the south of the Sudanese capital, residents said they heard “air strikes after the scheduled truce time.”

“Combats and Troop Movements”

For the thirty-seventh consecutive day, the five million inhabitants of the Sudanese capital spent the day in the midst of fighting, in sweltering heat, most without water, electricity or telecommunications.

The UN noted late in the afternoon “fighting and troop movements while both sides have pledged not to seek military advantage before the truce comes into force.”

In order to resume services and hospitals, replenish humanitarian stocks, and looted or bombed markets, the US and Saudi mediators announced that they had obtained—after two weeks of negotiations—a one-week truce.

Both sides said they would respect the truce.but in Khartoum, residents said they saw no preparations.

“We don’t see any sign that the RSF, which continues to occupy the streets, is preparing to abandon them,” Khartoum resident Mahmoud Salaheddine said earlier in the day.

Although the Army controls the airspace, it is short on men in the center of the capital, while the RSF occupy Khartoum ground. Many inhabitants accuse them of having looted their houses or of having set up their headquarters there.

In the East African country, one of the poorest in the world, a dozen truces have already been established, which have been immediately violated.

Despite everything, Khaled Saleh, in the Khartoum suburbs, wants to believe. “With a ceasefire, running water will be restored and I will finally be able to see a doctor for my diabetes and high blood pressure,” he told AFP.

fear of looting

In addition to stray bullets, the Sudanese fear looting.

Othman al-Zein, a trader from Darfur, one of the western regions of the country hardest hit by the fighting, is also hoping to find a way out. “If the truce holds for all of Sudan, which I doubt, I will leave Nyala,” in South Darfur, he told AFP, “to seek refuge and save my money.”

in sudan, 25 of the 45 million citizens need humanitarian aid, according to the UN. Food is becoming increasingly scarce, banks are closed and most food factories have been destroyed or looted.

“We are all hungry, the children, the elderly, everyone is suffering from the war. We have no water,” Khartoum resident Souad al-Fateh told AFP. “We need the two parties to come to an agreement.”

Scared and hungry, thousands of Sudanese or refugees in Sudan leave the country every day. Their number in Chad “is increasing very rapidly” and is approaching 90,000, the UN reported on Monday, after having counted 76,000 three days earlier. If the conflict continues, a million more Sudanese could flee to neighboring countrieswhere they fear the violence will spread.

Doctors do not stop warning about the dramatic fate of hospitals. In both Khartoum and Darfur, almost all of them are out of service. Those that have not been bombed have no medicine or are occupied by belligerents.

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Aid workers call for safe corridors. Riyadh and Washington had secured “a ceasefire monitoring mechanism” with representatives from both sides, as well as the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Fight “until victory or martyrdom”

Before the Security Council in New York, the representative of Sudan to the UN, loyal to General Burhan, accused the RSF of all the abuses registered since April 15.

General Daglo directed his accusations at the Army in an audio recording posted on the Internet. In it, he called on his men to fight “until victory or martyrdom.”

The UN envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, declared himself “surprised” by the clashes, which began just as the two generals were due to meet to discuss the democratic transition.

In 2021 they had staged a coup together, interrupting the democratic transition that began after 30 years of Omar al-Bashir’s dictatorship.

The discrepancies stemmed from the question of integrating the RSF into the regular Army.

with AFP

This text was translated from its original French version