It was a truce which was to last three days and end this Sunday, April 30 at midnight. But the Sudanese army and the paramilitaries did not wait for this delay, and the violent clashes redoubled in intensity throughout the day in the city of Khartoum. Since the outbreak on April 15 of a ruthless war of power between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and his number two, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), millions of Sudanese are trapped by bombing and anti-aircraft fire.
On Sunday, a first plane loaded with “eight tons” of aid, including “surgical equipment”, landed in Sudan where it should allow “to treat 1,500 patients” in a country where most hospitals are out of service due to fighting, announced the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The plane, which is also carrying humanitarian personnel, took off from Amman (Jordan) and landed in Port-Sudan, a coastal town 850 kilometers east of Khartoum, according to the ICRC. Sudanese airspace has been closed since April 15 as fighting began at Khartoum airport.
The war has left 528 dead and 4,599 injured, according to vastly understated official figures, and both sides accuse each other of violating the truce. On Sunday, witnesses reported fighting near army headquarters in Khartoum and airstrikes in Omdurman, a northern suburb of the capital. “There is very heavy fighting, gunshots ring out in my street every few minutes since dawn,” a witness told AFP. The authorities of the state of Khartoum announced in a statement that they were granting “leave until further notice” to civil servants in the capital, “given the security conditions”.
No diplomatic solution in sight
As the fighting enters its third week, residents of the capital, when not fleeing, remain barricaded, trying to survive shortages of food, water and electricity. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced inside Sudan or have made arduous journeys to neighboring countries, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Foreign governments have evacuated their nationals and citizens of other nationalities, especially from Port Sudan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the other side of the Red Sea. London, for example, has evacuated by air since Tuesday more than 1,800 British citizens and their relatives. But the operation was suspended on Saturday night as the government deemed it too risky with the fighting continuing. “We will continue to provide constant support” to the British still in Sudan, wanted to reassure this Sunday the Minister of Transport, Mark Harper.
Despite calls from the international community, no diplomatic solution is in sight between the two rivals in fatigues, who continue to rail against each other through the media. “The UN is stepping up its efforts to help people seeking safety in neighboring countries,” said its Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Twitter, who said he supported any African mediation. According to the UN, 75,000 people are internally displaced and at least 20,000 have fled to Chad, 4,000 to South Sudan, 3,500 to Ethiopia and 3,000 to the Central African Republic. In total, up to 270,000 people could flee if the war continues. The Sudanese authorities indicate that the fighting affects 12 of the 18 states that make up this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world.
A “terrible” situation in Darfur
Also according to the UN, a hundred people have been killed since Monday in El-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, a region still marked by the bloody civil war of the 2000s. “Armed violence between tribes” caused the destruction of the city’s main hospital, says the Ministry of Health. The UN chief warned of a “terrible” situation in Darfur, where “society is collapsing” with “tribes now trying to arm themselves”. As the humanitarian drama worsens, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced for its part that it had to “stop almost all of (its) activities” because of the violence.
At the head of the Janjawid militiamen, General Daglo, known as “Hemeti”, had carried out the scorched earth policy in Darfur, on the orders of Omar el-Bashir, the former dictator overthrown in 2019 by the street. The war that started in 2003 left about 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. Since then, the Janjawid have evolved and officially gave birth in 2013 to the FSR, a paramilitary auxiliary to the army.
Today rivals, Generals Burhane and Daglo had nevertheless joined forces during the putsch of 2021 to oust the civilians with whom they shared power since the fall of Omar el-Bashir. But differences then appeared and, for lack of agreement on the integration of the FSR into the army, degenerated into open war.