KHARTOUM: Heavy clashes and artillery fire erupted across Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Sunday and residents reported air strikes soon after the end of a 24-hour ceasefire that had brought a brief lull to eight weeks of fighting between rival military factions.
Witnesses said the fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was some of the heaviest for weeks, and included ground battles in the densely populated neighbourhood of Haj Youssef in Bahri, one of three adjoining cities, along with Khartoum and Omdurman, that make up the capital around the confluence of the River Nile.
Just after the ceasefire expired at 6 am witnesses said clashes and artillery fire resumed in the north of Omdurman. They also reported clashes in southern and central Khartoum, and in Shambat along the Nile in Bahri up to the strategic Halfiya bridge, which crosses to Omdurman.
“The truce made us relax a bit, but the war and fear are returning today,” said Musab Saleh, a 38-year-old resident of southern Khartoum.
Fighting has been concentrated in the capital, much of which has become a war zone plagued by looting and clashes. But unrest has also flared elsewhere including the western region of Darfur, already suffering from a conflict that peaked in the early 2000s.
Residents and activists have reported a further deterioration in recent days in El Geneina, near the border with Chad, and new waves of attacks by Arab nomadic tribes with ties to the RSF.
Among those killed were a number of human rights activists, lawyers and doctors, according to the Darfur Bar Association, which monitors the conflict in the region.
The city has been largely cut off from telephone networks for several weeks.
Another affected city is El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan State southwest of Khartoum and on a major route to Darfur. Residents say it is effectively under a state of siege due to the conflict, with supplies of food and medicine cut off. The wider Kordofan region is an important agricultural area and source of livestock, oil seeds and gum.
“The situation is difficult. The RSF are spread out on the roads between the villages and they are looting, and there are gangs looting everywhere,” North Kordofan resident Mohammed Salman said. The 24-hour ceasefire that began on Saturday morning was negotiated at talks led by Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jeddah. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
