The fighting in Sudan has caused more than 330,000 people to flee their homes within the country, with over 100,000 others escaping over the borders, the United Nations said Tuesday, as gunfire and explosions echoed across the capital despite another ceasefire deal.
The conflict risks morphing into a broader disaster as Sudan's impoverished neighbours deal with a refugee crunch and fighting hampers aid deliveries in a nation where two-thirds of people already rely on some outside assistance.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said Cairo would provide support for dialogue in Sudan between the rival military factions, but was also "being careful about not interfering in their domestic matters".
"The entire region could be affected," he warned in an interview with a Japanese newspaper on Tuesday as an envoy from Sudan's army chief, who leads one of the warring sides, met Egyptian officials in Cairo.
United Nations officials had said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths aimed to visit Sudan on Tuesday, but the timing was still to be confirmed.
Regional powers have been urging the two Sudanese warning generals, Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and RSF head Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, to end hostilities and begin negotiations.
The two factions on Tuesday agreed in principle to a seven-day ceasefire from Thursday, South Sudan announced as more air strikes and shooting in the Khartoum region disrupted the latest short-term truce.
A statement released by the foreign ministry of South Sudan, which has offered to mediate in the conflict, said its President Salva Kiir stressed the importance of a longer truce and of naming envoys to peace talks, to which both sides had agreed.
The credibility of the reported May 4-11 deal ceasefire deal between the two warring factions was unclear, given the rampant violations that undermined previous agreements running from 24 to 72 hours.
Risk of a regional crisis
The UN's World Food Programme said on Monday it was resuming work in the safer parts of the country after a pause earlier in the conflict, in which some WFP staff were killed.
"The risk is that this is not just going to be a Sudan crisis, it's going to be a regional crisis," said Michael Dunford, the WFP's East Africa director.
The commanders of the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who previously shared power as part of an internationally backed transition towards free elections and civilian government show no sign of backing down, yet neither seem able to secure a quick victory. That has raised the spectre of a prolonged conflict that could draw in outside powers.
Early on Tuesday, black smoke could be seen hanging over the capital Khartoum, which lies at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. Air strikes hit Bahri, on the east bank, while clashes flared in Omdurman to the west, witnesses said.
Hundreds of people have died in the fighting between Burhan and Hemedti, who have blamed each other for the ceasefire violationss.
The army has used airpower against RSF units dug into residential areas of Khartoum, damaging swathes of the capital area and reigniting conflict in Sudan's far west Darfur region.
Port Sudan, where thousands of people have fled Khartoum seeking evacuation abroad, is the main entry point for aid for many countries in the region, the WFP's Dunford told Reuters.
"Unless we stop the fighting, unless we stop now, the impact on a humanitarian scale is going to be massive," he said.
Kenya has offered the use of its airports and airstrips near the border with South Sudan as part of an international humanitarian effort, Kenyan Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua said.
Aid supplies
Aid supplies that have arrived in Port Sudan for other aid agencies were still awaiting safe passage to Khartoum, a road journey of about 800 km (500 miles), although Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it had delivered some aid to Khartoum.
Some 330,000 Sudanese have also been displaced inside Sudan's borders by the war, the UN migration agency said.
Thousands of Sudanese are trying to exit the country, many across the borders with Egypt, Chad and South Sudan. The U.N. warned on Monday that 800,000 people could eventually leave including refugees living in Sudan temporarily.
At the border with Egypt, where more than 40,000 people have crossed over the past two weeks, delays are causing refugees to wait for days before being let through after paying hundreds of dollars to make the journey north from Khartoum.
Foreign countries have carried out their own evacuation effort, with an airlift from outside the capital and long road convoys to Port Sudan where ships have ferried them abroad.
Most European countries have ended their evacuation efforts. Russia said on Tuesday it had pulled out 200 of its citizens.
The army and RSF had shared power since a 2021 coup but had fallen out over the timeline for a transition to civilian rule and moves to merge the RSF into the regular military.
The two had fought side by side to battle an uprising in Darfur from 2003 onwards in which more than 300,000 people died, raising accusations of genocide.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
