The Sudanese armed forces have not yet said whether they will agree to a ceasefire. At least 350 civilians have been killed in the fighting that started last weekend.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is fighting against the military regime in Sudan, has announced that it has agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire.
The ceasefire has come into force at 6 am local time and it coincides with Id al-Fitr, the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan.
– The ceasefire is in conjunction with the blessed feast so that humanitarian corridors can be opened for the evacuation of civilians and that people can greet their families, the RFS forces informed, according to the Reuters news agency.
As of early Friday morning, there was still some fighting in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
Commander of Sudan’s armed forces and de facto leader of the country, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has so far not commented on whether the army agrees to lay down its arms.
More than 350 killed in the fighting
At least 350 civilians have been killed so far in the fighting that started last weekend in Sudan, and hopes for the country’s peaceful transition towards democratic governance have been dashed.
On Thursday, a local medical team reported that at least 26 people had died in the town of El-Obeid, west of the capital Khartoum.
A military council has ruled Sudan since the October 2021 coup.
At the center of the fighting that has now broken out are two generals who both want to lead the Sudanese armed forces. The men argue about how the RFS force will be integrated into the army and who will ultimately lead this new force.
The RSF, which is fighting against the country’s armed forces, has about 100,000 men in its ranks and is led by a general Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
According to the RFS, it engaged the army in “self-defense”.
Refugees to Chad
Secretary General of the UN Antonio Guterres called on both sides on Thursday to start a ceasefire so that civilians can be brought to safety.
According to the news agency Reuters, thousands of civilians were seen fleeing Khartoum yesterday, while gunfire and explosions were heard in the streets of the city.
A large number of refugees have fled the fighting to Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor.
Sudan has a total of seven neighboring countries and borders the Sahel zone, which is considered restless. This has contributed to increasing the fear that the violence may spread beyond the country’s borders.
Source: Reuters