Heavy shelling in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Thursday disrupted efforts to deliver badly needed aid to trapped civilians as yet another fragile and frequently violated truce ran out, residents said. Sudan has plunged into chaos since fighting erupted in mid-April between the country’s two top generals.
There is increasing concern for those trapped and displaced by the fighting, and aid workers and civilians have said there is a dire lack of basic services, medical care, food and water.
In central areas of the capital, Khartoum, sporadic explosions could be heard Thursday, a day after the United Nations warned that the country’s people are “facing a humanitarian catastrophe,” and the latest in a series of cease-fires expired earlier in the day.
“The situation is very dire,” Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the country’s doctors’ syndicate said. “All forms of shelling can still be heard in Khartoum, whether air or artillery shelling.”
Black plumes of smoke rising from downtown neighbourhoods dotted Khartoum’s skyline at midday.
The fighting also raised questions about the viability of internationally backed initiatives seeking to bring an end to the fighting that has upended this African country’s transition to democracy.
The conflict started on April 15, preceded by months of escalating tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The fighting turned urban areas into battlefields and foreign governments rushed to evacuate their diplomats and thousands of foreign nationals out of Sudan.Both sides have traded accusations of truce violations over the past weeks. On Thursday, each side claimed its forces were the subject of attacks.
The military said late Wednesday it clashed with RSF forces around key government institutions in Khartoum, including the Republican Palace in the capital’s centre.
Cease-fire initiatives, put forward by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the East African bloc known as IGAD, have all floated a path towards longer negotiations.
But both sides have shown little commitment to even short-term promises to stop the fighting.The doctors’ group has in recent days warned that at least 60 per cent, of hospitals located near areas of active fighting are out of service, either because they have been shelled or due to the shortage of medical personnel and supplies.