In a video posted online by the Khartoum state health ministry, bodies lie on the ground, some with shredded limbs protruding from sheets thrown hastily to cover them. Several are women. These images testify to the cruelty of the air force raid on Saturday July 8 on the Dar Al-Salam district of Omdurman, the northwestern suburb of the Sudanese capital.
The bombardment left, according to the ministry, “twenty-two civilians dead and a large number of wounded”. For their part, the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), paramilitaries at war with the army since April 15, denounced “the tragic loss of more than 31 lives and many wounded”.
All these sources, like several residents contacted by Agence France-Presse, claim that the bombardment came from the air. But the army assured in a statement on Sunday that its “air force did not aim for any objective on Saturday in Omdurman”.
According to residents, the air force struck again on Sunday, the center of Khartoum near the presidential palace. Fighting with heavy weapons also opposed the two camps in several districts in the south of the capital, according to witnesses on the spot, and airstrikes were reported in Oumdourman. Meanwhile, civilians on Sunday began digging graves for victims of the previous day’s airstrike, other witnesses said.
“Total lack of respect for human rights”
In nearly three months of war between the FSR of General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Hemetti”, and the troops of General Abdel Fattah Al-Bourhane, nearly 3,000 dead have been recorded, a very underestimated toll, bodies still littering inaccessible streets.
According to the United Nations (UN), Sudan is “on the brink of an all-out civil war potentially destabilizing for the entire region”, on the borders of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, areas already in victim to violence before the war. From the heart of the capital, the fighting, air raids and looting that ensued reached Darfur and Kordofan, south of Khartoum, and the Blue Nile, bordering Ethiopia, in the south.
Nearly three million Sudanese have been forced to leave their homes, including more than 600,000 abroad, mainly Egypt, in the north, and Chad, in the west, as the abuses from both sides are increasing .
Farhan Haq, a spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, denounced “a total lack of respect for humanitarian law and human rights”, particularly in Darfur, a region martyred in the 2000s again at the heart of fights. In this vast region of western Sudan, where tribal fighters and armed civilians have joined warring sides, fighting has taken on an “ethnic dimension”, says the UN, as residents report “executions on the basis of ethnicity.
Meeting in Ethiopia
To attempt a way out of the crisis, the UN pleads for the proposals of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This East African bloc will bring together, Monday, in Addis Ababa, leaders of the four countries involved in the Sudanese file: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan. An IGAD official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the two warring generals had been invited, but said they could send lieutenants to Addis Ababa.
Since April 15, General Al-Bourhane has only been filmed twice with his men and General Daglo has only appeared for a few seconds in a video shot by his troops. The two men only intervene by sound messages or interposed media.
Khalid Omer Yousif, one of the civilian officials sacked from the government in 2021 by the two generals’ coup now at war, announced that several personalities were in Addis Ababa to “discuss with Sudanese and international actors in order to to accelerate peace efforts”. Negotiations led by the Americans and the Saudis have so far only brought about temporary truces, which are almost never respected.
For its part, Egypt announced on Sunday that it would host a summit of Sudan’s neighbors on Thursday, July 13, to discuss “ways to end the conflict” and its “repercussions” on neighboring countries, according to a statement from the Presidency.