A situation ” unprecedented “ in Sudan: faced with the persistence of fighting in Khartoum and despite the extension of a truce admittedly little respected, the UN decided on Sunday 30 April to send ” immediately “ a senior official in the region.
Millions of Sudanese remain trapped in shelling and gunfire since the April 15 outbreak of a ruthless power struggle between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s army and his number two, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), feared paramilitaries.
The sequel after the ad
“The scale and speed at which events are unfolding in Sudan (are) unprecedented”estimated Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who decided to immediately send his head of humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, to the region.
“I am on my way (…) to study how we can provide immediate help” residents, Martin Griffiths said in a statement on Sunday, for whom the “Humanitarian situation is reaching breaking point” in the country.
The massive looting of humanitarian offices and warehouses has “Most of our stocks sold out. We are looking for quick ways to transport and distribute” additional provisions, explained the senior UN official, according to whom the “obvious solution” is of “stop the fight”.
A prolonged ceasefire
A few hours before the expiration Sunday at midnight of a three-day ceasefire, the two rivals announced its extension, concluded “under the mediation of the United States and Saudi Arabia”said the Sudanese army.
The sequel after the ad
A first plane loaded with eight tonnes of aid and which should be able to treat 1,500 people landed Sunday in Port-Sudan, 850 km east of Khartoum, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The war left 528 dead and 4,599 injured, according to widely underestimated official figures. Both sides accuse each other of violating the truce.
In Sudan, fighting continues in Khartoum despite the truce
Sunday evening, the fighting continued and the fighter jets continued to fly over Khartoum and Omdurman, its northern suburbs, according to witnesses on the spot. As the fighting has raged for more than two weeks, residents of the capital, when not fleeing, remain barricaded, trying to survive despite shortages of food, water and electricity.
The Khartoum authorities gave “leave until further notice” to officials in the capital, while the police ensure that they are deployed in the city to prevent looting. Most of the country’s hospitals are out of service. For those still working, “the situation is untenable” because the material is missing, told AFP Majzoub Saad Ibrahim, a doctor in Ad-Damir, north of Khartoum.
The sequel after the ad
Thousands of foreign nationals evacuated
The UN lists 75,000 internally displaced people. At least 20,000 have fled to Chad, 6,000 to the Central African Republic and thousands more to South Sudan and Ethiopia. In total, up to 270,000 people could flee the fighting affecting 12 of the 18 states of this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world.
Several countries, including France, Germany and the United States, have evacuated their nationals and other foreigners. However, Canada has ended its evacuations “due to unsafe conditions”.
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Foreign Minister Fayçal ben Farhane received an emissary from General Burhane on Sunday. And neighboring Egypt called for an Arab League meeting on Monday to “discussing Sudan”.
According to the UN, a hundred people have been killed since Monday in West Darfur, a region marked by the bloody civil war of the 2000s. The UN chief warned of a situation « terrible » with “tribes who are now trying to arm themselves”.
The sequel after the ad
Sudan: the French embassy closes its doors and “is no longer a meeting point”
As the humanitarian drama worsens, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has arrested “virtually all of (its) activities” because of the violence.
At the head of the Janjawid militiamen, General Daglo, says « Hemedti », had carried out a scorched earth policy in Darfur, on the orders of Omar al-Bashir, the former dictator overthrown in 2019 by the street. The war that started in 2003 left about 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. The Janjawid officially gave birth in 2013 to the FSR, a paramilitary auxiliary to the army.
Today rivals, Generals Burhane and Daglo had nevertheless joined forces during the 2021 putsch to oust the civilians with whom they had shared power since the fall of Bashir. But differences then appeared and, for lack of agreement on the integration of the FSR into the army, degenerated into open war.
