Fighting resumed Wednesday morning in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries warring for power, shortly after the expiration of a largely respected 72-hour ceasefire in Khartoum.
The inhabitants of the capital were awakened by artillery fire and the noise of the fighting, a few minutes after the end of the truce, told AFP witnesses.
Omdurman, the city’s northern suburb, was the target of “artillery shelling” and “fighting”, while “fighter jets” flew over other nearby areas, they added.
A military source told AFP on Wednesday that the army had “launched an attack on the positions” of the paramilitaries there, inflicting “heavy losses”.
The struggle between the army, commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has plunged Sudan into chaos. Testimonies on the occupation of housing by combatants, on looting and other abuses are multiplying.
On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry accused the “FSR militias” of attacking and looting the Pakistani embassy and the residence of the Algerian ambassador in Khartoum.
On Tuesday evening, a huge fire broke out at the intelligence headquarters in the capital, with both sides accusing each other of having caused it by bombing the building.
Since April 15, the war has claimed more than 2,000 lives, according to the NGO Acled, and more than 2.5 million displaced persons and refugees according to the UN.
The international community on Monday pledged $1.5 billion in aid, half of the needs put forward by humanitarian agencies. According to the UN, 25 of the 48 million Sudanese cannot survive without humanitarian aid.
“The conflict has prevented many farmers from planting as the rainy season arrives,” Islamic Relief warned on Wednesday.
The summer agricultural season begins with the first rains at the end of May, but this year farmers have deserted their land due to fighting.
“The impact will be catastrophic on the next harvest and millions of people will face hunger,” warned the NGO.
On Wednesday, “explosions, heavy gunfire and shells” hit residential neighborhoods in Dilling, South Kordofan, 500 kilometers south of Khartoum, residents said.
Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan bordering Chad, is experiencing the deadliest violence.
In El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, 1,100 people were killed, according to the UN. The streets are strewn with corpses hastily covered in clothes, under the scorching sun.
On Tuesday, General Daglo denounced “a tribal conflict” in El-Geneina, claiming to have ordered his men “not to intervene” and accusing the army of “creating sedition by distributing arms” to civilians.
With few belongings under their arms, the inhabitants fled in long columns towards Chad under the crossfire of the belligerents but also of tribal fighters and armed civilians.
More than 150,000 people have fled to Chad, according to the UN.
In total, nearly 600,000 people have found refuge in neighboring countries, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Tuesday, while more than two million Sudanese are displaced in their own country, according to the High Commission for United Nations for Refugees.
In Darfur, home to African ethnic groups as well as Arab tribes, “the conflict now has an ethnic dimension”, warned the UN, the African Union and the East African bloc Igad .
“Massive attacks against civilians, based on their ethnic origins, allegedly committed by Arab militias and armed men in RSF uniforms are very disturbing and, if true, could constitute crimes against humanity “, warned the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes.
Already in the 2000s, a civil war had bloodied Darfur, where Arab Janjawid militiamen, who later gave birth to the FSR, had carried out the scorched earth policy ordered by the then dictator, Omar al-Bashir , against rebels from ethnic minorities.
21/06/2023 16:43:57 – Khartoum (AFP) – © 2023 AFP