The 72-hour ceasefire reached in Sudan under the aegis of the United States remains fragile and evacuations continue with the arrival in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday of a boat carrying 1,687 civilians fleeing the fighting.
The evacuees, from more than fifty countries, had boarded “one of the Kingdom’s ships”, Saudi diplomacy said in a statement, adding that they had met “all the essential needs of foreign nationals”.
In the Sudanese capital, clashes around “strategic places” have “largely continued and sometimes even intensified”, the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, told the Security Council on Tuesday evening. Port-Sudan (east), where the UN has relocated some of its staff.
Eleven days after the start of the fighting which left more than 459 dead and more than 4,000 injured according to the UN, Mr. Perthes said that “there is currently no clear sign that one or more other (of the two generals) is ready to really negotiate”.
On Tuesday, the army targeted with its planes the positions of the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) who responded with bursts of heavy machine gun fire in the suburbs of Khartoum, witnesses told AFP.
New air raids targeting FSR vehicles took place in the evening in the north of the capital, according to other witnesses.
And General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s paramilitaries — who oppose the army of rival General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, in power since a coup in October 2021 — say they have taken control of a refinery and a power plant 70 km north of Khartoum, according to video on Tuesday.
The army reported on Facebook a “significant movement (of the FSR) towards the refinery in order to take advantage of the truce to (in) take control”.
As with every truce announcement, the FSR and the army mutually accused each other of violating it.
A local ceasefire has also been observed in the vast region of North Darfur (west) for several days according to UN information, and the intense fighting there has decreased in intensity since the start of hostilities on April 15.
However, “near the Chadian border, fighting has resumed and there are growing and disturbing reports of tribes arming and joining the fighting,” Perthes said on Tuesday, adding that “inter-community clashes” also erupted in the Blue Nile region on the southeastern border with Ethiopia.
Witnesses also reported to AFP clashes between the army and the RSF, involving in particular fighter planes, in Wad Banda, in West Kordofan (south), a region bordering Darfur.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned for its part of an “enormous” biological risk after the seizure “by one of the fighting parties” of a “public health laboratory” in Khartoum, which contains pathogens of measles, cholera and poliomyelitis.
According to lawyers, an escape of detainees occurred at Kober prison in Khartoum, where Omar al-Bashir, deposed dictator in 2019 and under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” in Darfur, was detained with former members of his regime.
Ahmed Harun, one of his former collaborators, also wanted by the ICC, said in a speech recorded on Sudanese television on Tuesday evening that former officials of Mr. Bashir’s regime are no longer in detention.
“We remained in detention in Kober, under crossfire (…) for nine days”, even when there were no more guards and prisoners and “we now have the responsibility for our protection” in another place.
Mr. Bashir’s current whereabouts could not be independently verified.
Taking advantage of this potential lull, evacuations of foreign nationals living in Khartoum continued.
“The hardest thing is the sound of shelling and fighter jets flying over our house. It terrified the children,” said Safa Abu Taher, who landed with his family in Jordan overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. .
Up to 270,000 people could still flee to neighboring Chad and South Sudan, the UN warned on Tuesday.
A UN report says “shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel are becoming extremely serious, especially in Khartoum and surrounding areas”.
“In places, humanitarian aid is all that averts famine,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
Those who cannot leave the capital of more than five million people are trying to survive without water and electricity, subject to food shortages and telephone and internet blackouts.
According to the UN, “24,000 (women) are expected to give birth in the coming weeks” and face “extreme difficulties” in accessing care while, according to the doctors’ union, nearly three quarters of hospitals are out of order.
The conflict risks “invading the entire region and beyond”, warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The United Kingdom began the evacuation of its nationals on Tuesday, three days after that of its diplomats.
More than 1,000 EU nationals were able to leave, France announcing on Tuesday that it had evacuated 538 people, including 209 French people.
About 700 international staff from the UN, NGOs and embassies “have been evacuated to Port Sudan”, the UN said.
Five aid workers have been killed in fighting in Sudan where dozens of aid workers have been evacuated to Chad from Darfur.
26/04/2023 07:59:40 – Khartoum (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
