Sounds of gunfire and explosions have continued to rock Sudan’s capital, but the intensity of the fighting across the country has eased for a truce that residents hope will provide relief for people trapped with dwindling food, water and medicine.
On Wednesday afternoon, an army jet thundered across Khartoum and bombed militant positions in the city’s western outskirts, hitting an apartment block in the neighbourhood of Ombada.
Locals said the building had been occupied by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The RSF has fought the army, headed by the country’s military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for nearly two weeks in an all-out battle for control. The two sides agreed this week to a three-day ceasefire that will expire on Thursday evening.
RSF forces were staying in the Ombada block to sleep, residents said, and had hidden their vehicles under trees to avoid being seen by the air force.
Ashraf al-Hajj, a 43-year-old resident of Ombada, said he feared the army would enter the area on foot. “We don’t want them to come in and exchange clashes inside our neighbourhoods,” he said. Meanwhile, the RSF was getting short of ammunition and food, and had turned to looting, al-Hajj added.
The countrywide fight between General Burhan and Dagalo, known as Hemedti, has killed at least 459 people, wounded more than 4,000, and destroyed hospitals. A third of Sudan’s 46 million people already rely on humanitarian aid.
The United Nations special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, told the UN security council on Tuesday that the ceasefire seemed “to be holding in some parts so far”. But he said neither party was ready to “seriously negotiate, suggesting that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible”.
Sudanese people have been leaving the country en masse, taking perilous journeys across the vast country and crossing international borders. More than 10,000 people crossed north into Egypt from Sudan in the past five days, authorities in Cairo said. An estimated 20,000 have entered Chad to the west.
On Wednesday, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) painted a bleak picture of the conflict’s “terrible toll” on Sudan’s already stretched healthcare system.
Speaking from Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 61% of health facilities in Khartoum were now closed, and only 16% were operating as normal. Around a quarter of deaths so far could have been prevented if medics had had access to “basic haemorrhage control,” he added. “But paramedics, nurses and doctors are unable to access injured civilians, and civilians are unable to access services.”
On top of deaths and injuries caused directly by the conflict, Tedros said, the WHO expected there would be “many more” due to outbreaks of disease, lack of access to food and water, and disruptions to essential health services, including immunisation.
Separately, in a potentially explosive development, Sudan’s army announced on Wednesday that the country’s deposed president Omar al-Bashir, and five of his former aides, were no longer held in prison but had been moved to a military hospital.
The army announced that Bashir and his former defence minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before the current round of fighting broke out.
The RSF claimed the army sought to bring Bashir back to power, while the military accused its foe of releasing prisoners, including convicted murderers, from five prisons, including Kober.
Bashir, who ruled Sudan for three decades, was overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019 and is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged genocide.
Reuters contributed to this report
