(Port Sudan) Hundreds of Sudanese families fled a suburb of Khartoum on Saturday after fighting intensified between the army and paramilitaries around a military base, witnesses told AFP.
On Wednesday, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked the large base in the town of Bahri, which borders the Sudanese capital to the north. The base, called Hattab, has remained in the hands of the military since the start of Sudan’s civil war in April 2023.
“Since this morning [samedi]the army is firing artillery towards the south of the Hattab base while military planes are flying over the area, a witness said.
At the same time, FSR paramilitaries “attacked houses south of [la base] “From Hattab, capturing citizens and killing others,” said resident Nasr el-Din, who declined to give his last name for security reasons.
“Since morning, hundreds of families have left towards the north, carrying their belongings on their heads” to flee the fighting, he added, which another anonymous witness corroborated.
The war between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the FSR, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has left tens of thousands dead and caused the displacement of more than 10 million people, particularly in neighboring countries, according to the UN.
On Friday, UN experts, mandated by the Human Rights Council, called for the “immediate deployment” of an “independent and impartial” force to protect civilian populations, while the war has also caused a very serious humanitarian crisis.
According to them, the Sudanese belligerents “have committed a series of appalling human rights violations and international crimes, many of which can be qualified as crimes against humanity.”
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, began a two-day visit on Saturday to Port Sudan in the east, the de facto seat of government after authorities were ousted from Khartoum.
According to an AFP correspondent on the ground, he met with Sudanese officials and was due to visit health facilities.