UN warns Sudan ‘falling apart’ as fighting reaches third week

Warplanes on bombing raids drew heavy antiaircraft fire over Khartoum on Saturday as fierce fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitaries entered a third week, violating a renewed truce.

“There is no right to go on fighting for power when the country is falling apart,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told Al Arabiya television.

Guterres threw his support behind African-led mediation efforts.
“My appeal is for everything to be done to support an African-led initiative for peace in Sudan,” he said.

The Sudanese Health Ministry put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.

Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.

Tens of thousands have been uprooted within Sudan or embarked on arduous trips to neighboring Chad, Egypt, South Sudan or Ethiopia to flee the battles.

Truce violations

They have agreed to multiple truces but none has taken hold as the number of dead civilians continues to rise and chaos and lawlessness grip Khartoum, a city of five million people where many have been cloistered in their homes lacking food, water, and electricity.

The latest three-day cease-fire — due to expire at midnight (2200 GMT) Sunday — was agreed Thursday after mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations.

“We woke up once again to the sound of fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons blasting all over our neighborhood,” a witness in southern Khartoum told AFP.

Another said fighting had continued since the early morning, especially around the state broadcaster’s headquarters in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman.

Other witnesses reported exchanges of machine gun fire across the Blue Nile in Khartoum North, while the sound of gunfire rang out in Burri in the east of the city.

As battles raged, the rival generals — who seized power in a 2021 coup — took aim at each other in the media, with Burhan branding the RSF a militia that aims “to destroy Sudan” and Dagalo calling the army chief “a traitor.”

The Sudanese Health Ministry put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.

Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.

About 75,000 have been displaced by the fighting in Khartoum and the states of Blue Nile, North Kordofan, as well as the western region of Darfur, the UN said.

Mass exodus

The fighting has also triggered a mass exodus of foreigners and international staff.

On Saturday, a ferry with around 1,900 evacuees arrived at a Saudi naval base in Jeddah, after crossing the Red Sea from Port Sudan in the latest evacuation to the kingdom by sea.

Among the most recent evacuees were 65 Iranians.

Saudi Arabia has so far organized evacuations for almost 4,880 people from 96 countries, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

Merhdad Malekzadh, a 28-year-old Iranian who had been living in Khartoum since he was a child, said no one had expected the fighting to become so intense, and his escape had also been a surprise.

“Because of our nationality, we had never imagined we would come to Saudi Arabia when we were evacuated,” said Malekzadh, whose family runs an oil lubricants business in the Sudanese capital.

“Fortunately, they really helped us. They put their differences aside and worked together. They saved lives,” he added, according to AFP.

Those who were brought to Jeddah by ship on Saturday included a second group of Yemenis.

“The Kingdom worked to provide all the necessary needs of foreign nationals in preparation for facilitating their departures to their countries,” said the Foreign Ministry.

A US-organized convoy carrying American citizens, local staff, and nationals from allied countries arrived in Port Sudan Saturday to join the exodus across the Red Sea, the State Department said.

And the UK Foreign Office said just under 1,900 Britons have been taken out on 21 flights, including a final one which was due to depart on Saturday.

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.

About 70 percent of hospitals in areas near the fighting have been put out of service and many have been shelled, the doctors’ union said.

‘Horrible’ violence in West Darfur

In West Darfur state, at least 96 people were reported to have been killed in the city of El Geneina this week, the UN said.

“What’s happening in Darfur is terrible, the society is falling apart, we see tribes that now try to arm themselves,” Guterres said.

Sudan’s former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok warned that the conflict could deteriorate into one of the world’s worst civil wars if not stopped early.

“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper… Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play,” Hamdok told an event in Nairobi.

“I think it would be a nightmare for the world.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said there were reports of widespread looting, destruction, and burning of property, including at camps for displaced people. It said one of the hospitals it was supporting was even looted.

MSF deputy operations manager for Sudan, Sylvain Perron, said the fighting had forced the agency to stop almost all its activities in West Darfur.

“We demand that all health facilities, including hospitals, clinics, warehouses, and ambulances, and their staff are respected and protected.

We reiterate our calls to all parties to the conflict to avoid civilian areas and to spare civilian lives.”

— MSF International (@MSF) April 29, 2023

Darfur is still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003 when then hard-line president Omar Al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, against ethnic-minority rebels.

The scorched-earth campaign left at least 300,000 people dead and close to 2.5 million displaced, according to UN figures. Bashir was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court.

The Janjaweed later evolved into the RSF, which was formally created in 2013.

The 2021 coup that brought Burhan and Daglo to power derailed the transition to elective civilian rule launched after Bashir was ousted following mass protests in 2019.

The two generals later fell out, most recently over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.

Blockade in Gaza Strip

Palestinians embraced at the Egyptian border with the blockaded Gaza Strip as students returned home. Gaza’s Crossing and Border Authority said “172 students arrived in the homeland through the Rafah border crossing.”

With ordinary Sudanese caught in the crossfire, the civilian death toll jumped Saturday to 411 people, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which monitors casualties.

In some areas in and around the capital, residents reported that shops were reopening and normalcy gradually returning as the scale of fighting dwindled after the shaky truce. But in other areas, terrified residents reported explosions thundering around them and fighters ransacking houses. Now in its third week, the fighting has wounded 2,023 civilians, the syndicate added, although the true toll is expected to be much higher.