Khartoum - Heavy fighting raged on in Sudan Friday with warring generals trading blame, despite their agreement to extend a truce aimed at stemming nearly two weeks of warfare that has killed hundreds and caused widespread destruction.
Black clouds rose over the capital Khartoum in fresh fighting and the United Nations reported bitter urban battles in the war-ravaged Darfur region where scores were reported dead.
Turkey's defense ministry reported that one of its military transport aircraft had come under fire, underscoring the risks as foreign governments scramble to wrap up evacuations of their citizens.
Violence broke out on April 15 between Sudan's army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy and fellow coup leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, with warplanes pounding RSF positions in densely packed districts of Khartoum and fighters exchanging heavy machine gun fire.
The rival generals agreed Thursday to extend a repeatedly broken ceasefire for three more days after mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union, and the UN aimed at securing a more lasting truce.
But witnesses told AFP they heard air strikes and anti-aircraft guns being fired near the army command in Khartoum, where many residents have been shuttered at home with dangerously low levels of food.
Daglo denounced the army chief in an interview with the BBC, saying: "Burhan is not trustworthy and is a traitor. This war destroys Sudan."
In an interview with the US-based channel Al-Hurra, Burhan claimed "mercenaries" were pouring over the border from Chad, Central African Republic and Niger to exploit the chaos.
At least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting, according to health ministry figures, which are believed to be incomplete.
The Sudanese doctors' union warned Friday that the collapse of the healthcare system was "imminent", with more than 12,000 patients at risk of dying as they could not access regular kidney dialysis.
The UN humanitarian agency said just 16 percent of health facilities in Khartoum were still operating normally, leaving millions without access to health care.
- Darfur violence -
Fighting has also spread across Sudan, especially in long-troubled Darfur, where witnesses reported intense conflict and looting.
The Darfur Bar Association, a civil society group, said fighters were "launching rockets at houses" in the West Darfur state capital El Geneina, some 1,100 kilometres (685 miles) west of Khartoum.
It also reported firing from "rifles, machine guns, and anti-aircraft weapons".
"There is no food except what people have stored at home," one resident said, asking not to be named. Fighting has spread "nearly all over the city", the Bar Association said, urging Burhan and Daglo to "immediately stop this foolish war that is being waged on the backs of civilians".
UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said 96 people were reported to have been killed in El Geneina since Monday. The UN is "concerned at the serious risk of violence escalating in West Darfur", Shamdasani said, warning that the hostilities between the military and RSF "have triggered intercommunal violence".
Darfur is still reeling from the devastating war that raged in the 2000s when then-hardline president Omar al-Bashir crushed ethnic-minority rebels by creating the Janjaweed militia to carry out atrocities, a force that later formed the basis of Daglo's RSF.
The scorched-earth campaign left at least 300,000 people dead and close to 2.5 million displaced, according to UN figures, and saw Bashir charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the International Criminal Court.
Amid the chaos, several prisoners escaped jail, including war crimes suspects from Bashir's regime. The UN voiced alarm at the prison breaks, pointing to "the prospect of further violence, amid a generalized climate of impunity".
- Diplomacy on ceasefire -
The US, whose diplomats have been mediating by telephone between the warring generals, acknowledged violations of the truce. "But implementing ceasefires is often difficult at the start. Violations of the ceasefire do not mean a failure of the ceasefire," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
Britain announced it would end evacuation flights from Sudan on Saturday, after airlifting more than 1,500 people out this week.
The World Food Programme has said the violence could plunge millions more into hunger in a country where 15 million people -- one-third of the population -- already need aid to stave off famine.
Over 75,000 have fled their homes, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration, while tens of thousands have crossed into neighboring countries including Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan.
South Sudan's foreign ministry warned Friday that the conflict's "spillover effects are already visible".
Burhan and Daglo -- commonly known as Hemeti -- seized power in a 2021 coup that derailed Sudan's transition to democracy, established after Bashir was ousted following mass protests in 2019. But the two generals later fell out, most recently over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.
The conflict has triggered a rush to extract foreign diplomats and citizens. Several countries have evacuated nationals by air, while some have gone via Port Sudan on the Red Sea, about 800 km (500 miles) by road from Khartoum.
This is the status of some countries' efforts:
EGYPT
Egypt has evacuated a total of 6,399 Egyptians, 1,072 of whom were evacuated on Friday. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday some 16,000 people had crossed from Sudan to Egypt, including 14,000 Sudanese citizens.
GERMANY
As of Tuesday morning, a German evacuation mission had brought a total of 500 people from more than 30 countries to safety, including Belgian, British, Dutch, Jordanian, and U.S. citizens as well as Germans. Berlin said its flights would end on Tuesday.
FRANCE
The French government said on Thursday that it had so far evacuated a total of 936 people from Sudan. The foreign ministry said those evacuated included not only French nationals but also Britons, Americans, Canadians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Italians, and Swedes.
The United Nations secretary-general thanked France for its "vital assistance" in transporting 400 UN personnel and their dependents out of Sudan. The French Navy carried 350 from Port Sudan to Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night, while more than 70 were flown aboard a French Air Force transport plane to N'Djamena in Chad from El Fasher in Sudan on Thursday.
ITALY
Italian military planes flying from Djibouti evacuated 83 Italians and 13 others, including children and the Italian ambassador. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said some Italian NGO workers and missionaries had decided to stay in Sudan, while 19 others had been taken to Egypt.
BRITAIN
Britain said it had begun a "large-scale" evacuation of its nationals on Tuesday, with priority given to families with children, the elderly and the infirm. It had evacuated 897 people on eight UK flights as of 1500 GMT on Thursday with more flights to come. The government estimated there were about 4,000 Britons in Sudan. It evacuated its diplomats and their families on Saturday. Cyprus said it had activated a humanitarian rescue mechanism at Britain's request to let third countries use it for the reception and repatriation of foreign citizens evacuated from Sudan.
Cyprus is home to two large British military bases.
NETHERLANDS
About 100 Dutch nationals have been evacuated from Sudan since Sunday, Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said. Half left on four Dutch evacuation flights to Jordan, carrying about 70 people from 14 other countries. The Netherlands aims to evacuate around 150 Dutch nationals and has supplied two military planes to the international effort, which are also available for other nationalities.
UNITED STATES
U.S. forces evacuated American and some foreign diplomats on April 22. Washington said on Monday that several dozen Americans were traveling overland in a U.N.-led convoy to Port Sudan and that dozens more had expressed an interest in leaving. It said it was positioning naval assets to assist evacuations if necessary. RUSSIA
Russia has not yet announced any evacuation of its embassy or its nationals from Khartoum. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russians in Sudan were in close contact with Moscow.
JAPAN
All Japanese people who wished to leave have been evacuated, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.
SWITZERLAND
Switzerland has shut down its embassy and evacuated all Swiss staff and their families.
CHINA
China said most Chinese nationals have been safely evacuated in groups to neighboring countries. The defense ministry deployed naval ships to pick up and evacuate citizens on Wednesday. The foreign ministry said between Tuesday and Thursday, nearly 800 people were transferred by sea and more than 300 traveled to neighboring countries by land. There have been no casualty reports so far, the ministry said. The Chinese consulate-general in Jeddah issued a notice on Wednesday advising citizens who planned to evacuate to Saudi Arabia to enter through the Jeddah Islamic Port.
INDIA
More than 1,200 Indians evacuated from Sudan had arrived in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as of Thursday, and would soon be repatriated to India, the country's junior foreign minister V. Muraleedharan said.
INDONESIA
The foreign ministry said that out of 900 Indonesians who have been evacuated from Sudan, nearly 400 arrived back in Indonesia on Friday morning.
CANADA
Canada conducted its first evacuation operation in Sudan on Thursday, airlifting over 100 people, including Canadians and other nationals, on two flights from the war-torn North African country, senior government officials said. Canada would deploy about 200 troops to coordinate evacuations from war-torn Sudan, Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday. About 180 Canadians had already been evacuated with the help of other countries. There are about 1,800 Canadians in Sudan, out of which about 700 have requested assistance from the foreign ministry, according to the Canadian government.
UKRAINE
Ukraine said it had rescued 87 of its citizens - most of them pilots, aircraft technicians, and their families - among a total of 138 civilians, who also included citizens of Georgia and Peru.
KENYA
Kenya's foreign affairs ministry said on Thursday the government had evacuated 342 people who arrived in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia from Port Sudan.
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa said it expected the last 12 of its nationals known to be in Sudan to have left on Tuesday.
IRAN
Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday 65 Iranian citizens had left from Port Sudan, through Jeddah, to Iran.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
