Fierce street fighting, including the use of heavy weaponry and artillery fire, has consumed central Khartoum as worsening violence tests a deteriorating ceasefire.
Volleys of airstrikes and sounds of gunfire were audible in Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, overnight as clashes raged throughout the capital, and were particularly heavy in areas around major government and military infrastructure in the city centre.
Hospitals increasingly reported strikes on their premises, and an airstrike on an area outside East Nile hospital in north Khartoum killed at least three tea vendors as well as a child, leaving behind only a crater.
The Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that has sought shelter in densely populated urban areas of the capital, blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for violating the ceasefire with strikes on factories and medical facilities, including the East Nile hospital, where it said dozens of civilians were killed and injured.
The SAF, led by the country’s de facto leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, claimed the RSF infiltrated the homes of soldiers and detained their families.
Both parties have said they are open to sending negotiators for talks in Saudi Arabia, with discussions limited initially to how to enforce a ceasefire amid fighting that has left more than 500 people dead. The true number of casualties is unknown as most hospitals are unable to function fully; a medical union described piles of bodies left in the streets as fighting continued around them.
On Tuesday, the two sides said they had agreed to a new seven-day ceasefire, even as more airstrikes and shooting shook the capital despite the supposed truce.
Despite pressure to quell the violence as the two groups fought for control of the capital, civilians remained caught in the crossfire. There was little suggestion that either the SAF or the RSF would allow anyone representing the Sudanese populace to attend negotiations.
Ahmed Al-Mufti, a longtime human rights advocate based in Omdurman, said: “I think these negotiations will be difficult. But there needs to be a ceasefire as citizens are suffering so much, they need a permanent ceasefire to get life back to normal.”
He believed that any peace negotiations should build on discussions that took place before the fighting began, concerning the transfer of power to a civilian government, and resolve any previous issues. Burhan and his RSF rival, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have shown an unwillingness to transfer power to civilian elements in Sudan’s political system, and collaborated on an October 2021 military coup.
The two warring military factions agreed to a new and longer seven-day ceasefire from Thursday, said South Sudan, which is mediating, even as more violence undercut their latest supposed truce. A partial and deteriorating ceasefire has been renewed multiple times since the fighting began.
Callout
As battles raged across the capital and the Darfur region, civil society increasingly stepped in to help people. A coalition of unions and civil society groups founded an umbrella group, the Civil Front to Stop the War and Restore Democracy, demanding an immediate end to the fighting, a return to the political process towards civilian rule, an end to military rule, and an overhaul of the security sector.
Hatim Elyas, who co-founded the Popular Initiative to Stop the War in Sudan, expressed his disappointment with how western governments and international organisations had responded to the outbreak of violence.
“We felt that the international community’s slow response to the crisis in Sudan is a worrying sign. They used to be supportive of the political transition and allocated resources for it, but no, they just left,” he said. “When they pulled out their diplomats, they sent a message to the people of Sudan. We are disappointed by their attitude, especially after their Hollywood-style evacuations of their citizens from Sudan.”
In the absence of a functioning government, Sudanese civil resistance committees – localised political groups integral to the 2019 uprising that ended the reign of the former dictator Omar al-Bashir – were helping trapped civilians by distributing vital goods.
Basil Omer, 34, a lab technician and member of one local resistance committee in the Manshiya neighbourhood of central Khartoum, explained how the team helped to locate and bury the dead.
“Today we were told about a body in an apartment in Al-Riyadh neighbourhood, people knew about it from the smell. Normally we take photos and try to take a DNA sample, because putting bodies at the morgue is impossible at the moment, they need to be buried quickly. So taking a photo helps their relatives to know about them in future,” he said.
Omer also described how he helped to transport water to his parents’ neighbourhood in Khartoum North. “We use big tankers to get drinking water from Halfaiya neighbourhood where they have wells, though their water isn’t as sweet as in our part of town,” he said. “We also try to find those who have solar electricity at homes to help each other to charge phones so they will be able to speak with their loved ones.”
Mufti said people in areas outside Khartoum had begun sharing their details and inviting displaced people to seek safety with them. “I think it’s most positive what’s happening. People are really afraid of the fighting and some are trying to flee, but it’s clear they can receive support from these people. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere, this will help citizens more than anything,” he said.
“I’m constantly receiving messages like this, saying ‘please come to our area and we’ll feed and accommodate you’. It’s wonderful, we haven’t seen anything like this before.”
He added: “The citizens really are the victims of this fighting. But there’s social support, even as they suffer more and more.”
Former diplomats admitted that Sudanese civilians were previously ignored amid the international community’s willingness to deal with the two generals who have now turned on one another.
Alexander Rondos, a former EU special representative for the Horn of Africa, told CNN: “We need to ask ourselves whether, early on, were we in too much of a hurry to find a solution which we thought was pragmatic, but actually tilted towards those who controlled all the money and the weapons – and that the civilians gradually got squeezed out. So that’s a lesson we’ve got to learn.”
The UK Foreign Office minister for development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, told MPs that the humanitarian consequences for Sudan would be unconscionable if a long-term ceasefire was not agreed.
The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, hailed the UK airlift of its nationals and others as the longest and largest of any western nation. A total of 2,300 people were evacuated by air, Cleverly told MPs.
Asked if all 24 Sudanese doctors normally resident in the UK and working for the NHS had been given safe passage back to Britain on RAF flights, he said 22 had. The Home Office had initially debarred them from the flights on the grounds that they were not UK nationals.
Late on Tuesday, the UK said British nationals who wanted to leave Sudan should go to Port Sudan, from where additional flights are expected to leave the country on Wednesday.
“British nationals still wishing to leave the country should go to the Coral hotel in Port Sudan by 10.00 Sudan time [on Wednesday],” the government said.
Additional reporting by Patrick Wintour
