(Khartoum) The violence reached a new level on Thursday in Sudan with destruction and looting in Darfur and intense bombardments in Khartoum on the thirteenth day of the conflict between the army and paramilitaries having already left hundreds dead.
Hours before the expiration Thursday at midnight (6 p.m. EST) of a three-day ceasefire that was largely broken, the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced that they had approved the extension of the truce for 72 hours “following an initiative by Saudi Arabia and the United States”.
In a joint statement issued in Washington, the members of the “Quad” on Sudan (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States), as well as the African Union and the United Nations, considered “welcome” this extension of the ceasefire and called for “its full implementation” and “unhindered humanitarian access”.
This “ceasefire”, which began on Tuesday, allowed the evacuation of thousands of foreigners and Sudanese, but did not prevent Khartoum from being continuously pounded by planes and heavy artillery.
Previously, multiple efforts to bring about a truce between the two sides, which have been clashing since April 15, had failed.
“I hear intense shelling outside my home,” a Khartoum resident reported Thursday evening.
Since April 15, the fighting between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the very dreaded paramilitary FSR of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, has left more than 500 dead and thousands injured, according to the Sudanese Ministry of Health.
Damping hopes of a democratic transition, the two generals ousted civilians from power together in a putsch in 2021, before going to war, failing to agree on the integration of paramilitaries into the army. army.
In Darfur, a remote region to which access is currently impossible, violence is intensifying, particularly in El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.
“Hospitals, public buildings and health centers have been severely damaged and there is looting on every street corner,” a resident of El-Geneina told AFP.
“Blocked”
“We are stuck at home, we are too afraid to go out so we don’t know the exact extent of the destruction,” he said.
Few information filter from this border region of Chad and theater in the 2000s of a particularly bloody war. But pro-democracy doctors have already announced the death of one of their colleagues in this violence.
The UN has been reporting for several days “attacks against civilians, looting and burning of houses”, while “weapons are distributed” to civilians.
These clashes make life even more precarious for the inhabitants of the region, one of the poorest in the country where 50,000 children “suffering from acute malnutrition” have been deprived of food aid since the UN suspended its activities after the death. of five humanitarians.
“Violence, the interruption of the functioning of many hospitals and dispensaries, limited access to drinking water, food shortages and the forced displacement of populations” constitute “the greatest risks for health in Sudan”, warns the World Health Organization (WHO).
The fighting has caused a mass exodus in this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world.
Several tens of thousands of people have arrived in neighboring countries: Chad to the west, Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan and the Central African Republic to the south and Egypt to the north.
PHOTO MAHAMAT RAMADANE, REUTERS
Several tens of thousands of people have already arrived in neighboring countries: Chad to the west, Ethiopia to the east.
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, called on neighboring countries and the international community to help people fleeing the fighting, urging the warring parties to “immediately agree to a permanent ceasefire to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Sudanese in need”.
“Extremely worried”
In recent days, several countries have organized evacuations by sea or air. More than 200 Iraqis landed in Baghdad on Thursday, evacuated on two planes sent by the Iraqi government.
A new Saudi ship arrived in the evening in the western port city of Jeddah, bringing the number of people evacuated from Riyadh to 2,744. Canada announced that it had evacuated 118 nationals from Canada and other countries.
Those left behind in Sudan’s combat zones have to contend with food, water and electricity shortages as well as internet and phone line cuts.
The acting United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Abou Dieng, said he was “extremely worried about the food supply”, calling for “collective action”.
Fourteen hospitals were bombed, according to the doctors’ union, and 19 others were forcibly evacuated because of gunfire, lack of equipment and personnel or because fighters had taken up residence there.