Fighting resumed in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Sunday shortly after the expiration of a 24-hour truce that gave residents a short respite after nearly two months of conflict between rival generals.
It’s the “return of terror”, told AFP Asmaa al-Rih, a resident of the northern suburbs of Khartoum, with “rockets and shells that shake the walls of houses” again.
The inhabitants of this city of five million inhabitants were awakened by artillery fire and the sound of fighting in several neighborhoods, according to several witnesses.
A one-day lull is “like a dream” that has faded, told AFP Nasreddine Ahmed, a resident of south Khartoum, who “woke up to the sound of fighting” on Sunday.
The violence resumed ten minutes after the end of the 24-hour truce negotiated by the Saudi mediators, which began on Saturday at 06:00 (04:00 GMT).
Both sides had pledged to cease fighting across the country to allow “the arrival of humanitarian aid”, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
Heavy artillery shelling was heard in Khartoum and the twin city of Omdurman, where “anti-aircraft battery fire” responded to “air strikes”.
Shootings with “various types of weapons” were reported in Al-Hawa Street, in the south of the capital as well as in the eastern suburbs, also hit “by air raids”, according to residents.
“Shoulders have landed in the homes of civilians,” reports a “resistance committee” from the south of the capital, one of the militant cells which organize mutual aid between the inhabitants.
The last truce, generally respected, had allowed the inhabitants of Khartoum to take advantage of a respite to refuel or flee the capital, in the grip since April 15 of an armed conflict which has led to a serious humanitarian crisis.
For the fifth consecutive day, clouds of smoke emerged on Sunday from the tanks of the Al-Shajara oil installation, near the Yarmouk military factory in Khartoum.
The fighting is mainly in Khartoum and the vast Darfur region of western Sudan, where NGOs report a deteriorating humanitarian situation.
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”.
“In recent weeks, we have managed to deliver surgical equipment to ten hospitals” in the capital, “but the needs are immense and there is still a lot to do”, he added, pointing to serious water shortages , electricity, food and medical supplies.
The conflict opposes the army commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, the de facto ruler of Sudan, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, his deputy who has become his rival.
Previous truces had generally been violated as soon as they came into effect.
The war between the two generals, struggling for power after jointly carrying out a putsch in 2021, has already left more than 1,800 dead, according to the organization ACLED, which specializes in collecting information in conflict zones, as well as two million displaced persons and refugees according to the UN.
Visiting Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken assured that Washington and Riyadh were keen to “continue their solid cooperation and put an end to the fighting in Sudan”.
Egypt, bordering Sudan in the north, announced on Saturday the tightening of formalities for entering its territory for Sudanese fleeing the war.
Since the start of the conflict, more than 200,000 Sudanese have entered Egypt, most of them by land.
These measures are not intended to “prevent or limit the number of Sudanese citizens entering” Egyptian territory, but rather to put an end to the “illegal activities of individuals and groups on the Sudanese side of the border, who falsify entrance” for profit, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry explained.
11/06/2023 15:27:10 – Khartoum (AFP) – © 2023 AFP