The Sudanese army and paramilitaries exchanged shells from two opposite banks of the Nile in the capital on Monday, residents of Khartoum reported, in the seventh month of a war whose atrocities NGOs denounce.
“The army, from Omdurman, on the west bank, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from Khartoum-North on the east bank,” exchanged artillery fire and rockets, a witness told AFP .
A story corroborated by other residents, including local activists, who say that in recent weeks, bombings have caused dozens of civilian victims.
The conflict started on April 15 between the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and his deputy turned rival, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, left more than 10,000 dead according to an estimate by the NGO Armed Conflict Location&Event Data Project (Acled), considered largely undervalued.
It has also displaced more than six million people, according to the UN, and destroyed most infrastructure.
At the negotiating table, the two camps hardly intend to make concessions, as demonstrated once again by the failure in early November of negotiations sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, the RSF claimed to have “attacked the Wadi Seidna base”, a strategic air base located north of Khartoum, “destroying a C130 military transport plane and an ammunition depot”.
More than 800 kilometers to the southwest, in al-Muglad, West Kordofan, the army withdrew from a base after a paramilitary attack in this oil-rich region, witnesses said.
In the same state, in Babanusa, witnesses reported army aerial bombardments targeting paramilitaries.
The army has retreated several times in recent weeks as the RSF took control of military bases in the vast Darfur region (west).
Organized ethnic massacres
The paramilitaries announced that they had taken “total control” of El Daein, the capital of East Darfur marking the latest in the meteoric advances of the RSF in Darfur, where only the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, is still in the hands of the army.
Experts, humanitarians and the United States have warned of an imminent attack on El Fasher while human rights activists have reported massive ethnic massacres in RSF-controlled localities in Darfur, already ravaged by decades of ethnic violence.
In a report released late Sunday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the UN Security Council to act to prevent further atrocities following the killing of hundreds of civilians in Darfur.
“Ethnicity-based killings by the RSF in West Darfur bear the hallmarks of a campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians,” a non-Arab ethnic minority targeted by paramilitaries, said Mohamed Osman of HRW .
“The UN Security Council must stop ignoring the desperate need for protection of civilians in Darfur,” he added.
In the town of Ardamata alone, in early November, more than 1,000 people were killed, according to the European Union, by armed groups who forced more than 8,000 people to flee to neighboring Chad in a week, according to the ‘UN.
Mass graves
Survivors told HRW of mass killings, ethnically motivated executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, looting and sexual violence.
HRW verified satellite images that appear to confirm reports of newly dug mass graves where civilians buried their dead before fleeing.
The NGO also warned of the imminent closure of the UN mission in Sudan which would “significantly reduce UN monitoring of the situation”.
Sudan this month called for an end to the mandate of the UN mission which, since the start of the war, has operated mainly in the country’s army-controlled east.