(Khartoum) Military planes bombarded a town in southern Sudan on Wednesday for the first time since the start two months ago of hostilities between the army and a powerful paramilitary force which plunged the country into a serious humanitarian crisis.
The air force carried out “airstrikes for the first time on El-Obeid”, 350 kilometers south of the capital Khartoum, “which has been surrounded by paramilitary forces since the beginning of the fighting”, said to AFP several witnesses.
Fighting broke out on April 15 between the army commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, de facto leader of Sudan, and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, his deputy who became his rival.
For eight weeks, the fighting has been concentrated mainly in Khartoum, the capital of five million inhabitants, and in the vast region of Darfur in the west. They killed more than 1,800 people, according to the NGO Acled, and two million displaced people, according to the UN.
Civilians who have not fled have “neither food, water nor medicine”, told AFP a resident of Khartoum, Ahmed Taha.
“We have nothing left. The country is devastated. Everywhere you look, you see the impacts of bombs and bullets”.
For several weeks, Saudi Arabia and the United States mediated negotiations between the two sides in the Saudi city of Jeddah, with a view to obtaining a truce.
Sudan Aid Conference
But the numerous truces announced were almost never respected and humanitarian aid remained blocked or reached the civilians in very insufficient quantities.
Twenty-five million of the 45 million inhabitants of Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, now depend on humanitarian aid to survive, according to the UN.
On Friday, the head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sudan, Alfonso Verdu Perez, lamented that “only 20% of health establishments are still functioning in Khartoum”.
Entire neighborhoods are deprived of running water and the electricity only works for a few hours a week.
“We have been suffering and still suffering from this war for two months,” said Soha Abdelrahmane, a resident of Khartoum, adding that several cities in Darfur, such as El-Geneina and Nyala, are under “a state of siege”.
The head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, said on Tuesday he was “particularly alarmed” by the situation in Darfur where the violence could constitute “crimes against humanity”.
This region was devastated in the 2000s by a civil war that left around 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN.
Saudi Arabia has announced that an international conference on aid to Sudan will be held on June 19.