(Khartoum) Sudan’s warring army and paramilitaries resumed fighting on Wednesday morning, shortly after the expiration of a generally held 72-hour ceasefire in Khartoum, witnesses said.
Residents of Khartoum were woken by artillery fire and the sound of fighting, minutes after the end of the 72-hour truce, which began at 6 a.m. Sunday (12 a.m. ET), said these witnesses to AFP.
Omdurman, the northern suburb of the capital, was the target of “artillery shelling” and “fighting”, while “fighter planes” flew over other nearby areas, they added.
The army, commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, had pledged to cease all movement and attack to allow humanitarian aid to pass through this East African country, one of the poorest in the world.
But Tuesday evening, the last day of the truce, a huge fire raged at the intelligence headquarters in the capital.
The FSR “bombarded the building”, violating the truce, assured AFP a source within the army. An “army drone bombed the building where the FSR troops were gathered, causing the fire and partial destruction of the intelligence headquarters”, retorted a source within the FSR.
Previous truces have generally been violated as soon as they come into effect.
Since April 15, the war has claimed more than 2,000 lives, according to the NGO ACLED, and more than 2.5 million displaced persons and refugees according to the UN.
Dead bodies in the streets
The international community, meeting in Geneva, promised Monday 1.5 billion dollars in aid, or half of the needs put forward by humanitarian agencies.
However, 25 of the 48 million Sudanese cannot survive without humanitarian aid, recalls the UN.
On Wednesday, “explosions, heavy gunfire and shells (have) hit residential areas” of Dilling, in South Kordofan, 500 kilometers south of Khartoum, according to residents.
Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan bordering Chad, has experienced the deadliest violence since the start of the conflict.
In the city of El-Geneina alone, the capital of the state of West Darfur, 1,100 people were killed according to the UN. The streets are strewn with corpses hastily covered in clothes under the scorching sun and many shops have been ripped open by looters.
In an audio recording posted online on Tuesday, General Daglo denounced “a tribal conflict” in El-Geneina, claiming to have ordered his men “not to intervene” and accusing the army of “creating sedition by distributing weapons to civilians.
With few belongings under their arms, the inhabitants fled in long columns towards Chad under the crossfire of the belligerents, but also of tribal fighters and armed civilians.
“Constant Fear”
Since Friday, “15,000 Sudanese, including nearly 900 wounded” have fled to Adré, Chad, about thirty kilometers from El-Geneina, according to the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
“The violence has escalated, people live in constant fear of being targeted,” says Konstantinos Psykakos of MSF.
More than 150,000 people have fled to Chad, according to the UN. In total, “550,000 people (have) fled to neighboring countries”, according to the International Organization for Migration.
And more than “two million” Sudanese are displaced within their own country, says UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
In Darfur, “the conflict now has an ethnic dimension”, warned the UN, the African Union and IGAD, the East African bloc. The violence committed there could constitute “crimes against humanity”.
Mr. Grandi pleaded on Tuesday for neighboring countries to “keep their borders open” despite their “security” fears, during an interview with AFP in Nairobi.