(Khartoum) An “unprecedented” situation in Sudan: faced with the persistence of fighting in Khartoum and despite the extension of an admittedly little-respected truce, the UN decided on Sunday to send a senior official to the region “immediately” .
Millions of Sudanese remain trapped in shelling and gunfire since the April 15 outbreak of a ruthless power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s army and his number two, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), feared paramilitaries.
“The scale and speed at which events are unfolding in Sudan [sont] unprecedented,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who decided to immediately send his head of humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, to the region.
” I am on my way […] in order to study how we can bring immediate help” to the inhabitants, said Mr. Griffiths on Sunday in a press release, for which the “humanitarian situation is reaching a breaking point” in the country.
The massive looting of humanitarian offices and warehouses has “depleted most of our stocks. We are looking for quick ways to bring in and distribute” additional supplies, explained the senior UN official, according to whom the “obvious solution” is to “stop the fight”.
A few hours before the expiry Sunday at midnight (6 p.m. Eastern time) of a ceasefire of three days, the two rivals announced its extension, concluded “under the mediation of the United States and the Saudi Arabia,” the Sudanese military said.
A first plane loaded with eight tonnes of aid and which should be able to treat 1,500 people landed Sunday in Port Sudan, 850 km east of Khartoum, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS VIA REUTERS
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the cargo delivered to Port Sudan contains “anesthetic products, dressings, suture materials and other surgical items”.
The war left 528 dead and 4,599 injured, according to largely underestimated official figures. Both sides accuse each other of violating the truce.
Sunday evening, the fighting continued and the fighter jets continued to fly over Khartoum and Omdurman, its northern suburbs, according to witnesses on the spot.
“There is very heavy fighting and gunfire,” a witness told AFP.
As the fighting has raged for more than two weeks, residents of the capital, when not fleeing, remain barricaded, trying to survive despite shortages of food, water and electricity.
Khartoum authorities have given “leave until further notice” to officials in the capital, while the police claim to be deployed in the city to prevent looting.
Diplomatic efforts
Most of the country’s hospitals are out of service. For those still functioning, “the situation is untenable”, because the equipment is lacking, told AFP Majzoub Saad Ibrahim, a doctor in Ad-Damir, north of Khartoum.
The UN lists 75,000 internally displaced people. At least 20,000 have fled to Chad, 6,000 to the Central African Republic and thousands more to South Sudan and Ethiopia. In total, up to 270,000 people could flee the fighting which affects 12 of the 18 states of this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world.
Several countries, including France, Germany and the United States, evacuated their nationals and other foreigners. Canada has, however, halted its evacuations “due to the unsafe conditions”.
PHOTO FAYEZ NURELDINE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Evacuees stand on a ferry carrying some 1,900 people across the Red Sea from Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal naval base in Jeddah on April 29, 2023.
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Foreign Minister Fayçal ben Farhane received an emissary from General Burhane on Sunday.
And neighboring Egypt called for an Arab League meeting on Monday to “discuss Sudan”.
For the experts of the Carnegie Middle East Center, General Daglo is trying to gain time: “the longer he can hold his positions in Khartoum, the greater his weight will be at the negotiating table. »
“Armed Tribes”
According to the UN, a hundred people have been killed since Monday in West Darfur, a region marked by the bloody civil war of the 2000s.
The UN chief warned of a “terrible” situation with “tribes now trying to arm themselves”.
As the humanitarian drama worsens, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has stopped “almost all of (its) activities” because of the violence.
At the head of the Janjawid militiamen, General Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, had carried out the scorched earth policy in Darfur, on the orders of Omar el-Bashir, the former dictator overthrown in 2019 by the street.
The war that started in 2003 left about 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. The Janjawid officially gave birth in 2013 to the FSR, paramilitary auxiliaries of the army.
Today rivals, Generals Burhane and Daglo had nevertheless joined forces during the 2021 putsch to oust the civilians with whom they had shared power since the fall of Bashir.
But differences then appeared and, for lack of agreement on the integration of the FSR into the army, degenerated into open war.