New 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan amid worsening humanitarian crisis

First modification: 06/18/2023 – 01:56

The same day that fresh airstrikes killed civilians, including five children, and struck various parts of the Sudanese capital, leaving 25 homes destroyed; Warring military factions agreed to another ceasefire, adding to a series of fragile truces that have failed to stop the violence.

“The parties agreed that, during the ceasefire, they will refrain from prohibited movements, attacks, use of military aircraft or drones, artillery strikes, reinforcement of positions and resupply of forces, and will refrain from seeking military advantage during the ceasefire on fire”, reads the statement signed in Saudi Arabia, a country where a negotiating table is set up.

This Saturday, the Ministry of Health of Sudan gave a new report of victims due to the intense fighting between the regular Army and the paramilitaries that are fighting for power. More than 3,000 people have died and 6,000 have been injured since mid-April.

Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim warned that only half of Khartoum’s 130 hospitals were still operating and that all hospitals in West Darfur state were out of service. The war has displaced 2.2 million Sudanese and turned the Darfur region, ravaged by past wars, into a “humanitarian disaster,” according to the United Nations (UN).

Two months of “war of attrition”

The fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Paramilitary Forces (FAR) is entering its third month with neither side gaining a clear advantage.

The regular army has the advantage of air power in Khartoum and its neighboring cities Omdurman and Bahri, while the FAR has embedded itself in residential neighborhoods. On Friday and Saturday, the Army appeared to increase airstrikes, hitting several residential neighborhoods.

In a speech released by the army on Friday, Senior General Yassir Al-Atta warned people to stay away from houses that paramilitaries had occupied. “Between us and these rebels there are bullets,” Yassir said, appearing to dismiss attempts at mediation being discussed in Saudi Arabia.

Late on Friday, the local resistance committee said 13 people had been killed by shelling in al-Lammab in western Khartoum, calling the neighborhood a “zone of operations”. Residents reported airstrikes elsewhere in the south and west of the capital as late as afternoon.

In other cities such as Omdurman, airstrikes continued until Saturday, hitting homes and killing one person, according to the local committee in the Beit al-Mal neighborhood.

The versions and propaganda of both sides in the conflict also collide. While the regular Army is on the offensive, the FAR rebels claim military coups such as the recent shooting down of an Army warplane in the Nile River, west of Khartoum.

“Smoke foundations could be seen rising near the fuel depots in the south of Khartoum,” said a resident of the Sudanese capital.

One more truce that seems insufficient in the face of the advance of violence

Internal migration and migration to neighboring countries is one of the faces of the worsening rights situation in Sudan. In El-Geneina, in Western Darfur, one of the regions hardest hit by the endless ethnic and political conflicts that the African country has experienced in recent decades, more than 270,000 have crossed the border into Chad. This displacement occurred after more than 1,000 people were killed in attacks attributed to FAR paramilitaries and allied militias, according to some local residents and the United States government, mediator in the conflict.

However, a Chadian military source and a local official in Adre, where many of the fleeing refugees arrived, said the situation is under control and there is no active fighting on the border. Chad’s own president, Idriss Deby, visited the area to witness the development of the humanitarian crisis there and to order the closure of the border.

According to the UN, almost half of the more than 2 million displaced Sudanese have fled to neighboring Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Libya.

But most of the inhabitants besieged by the fighting do not have the resources to flee and must face the worsening humanitarian crisis. In Khartoum, the war has cut off electricity to millions of people. Water and access to medical care are also in short supply and residents have had to ration food. Widespread looting is already customary.

Since the conflict between the FAR and the Sudanese Army broke out, there has not been a single ceasefire that has been fully complied with.

With Reuters, AP and local media