GUN BATTLES RAGE IN CENTRAL KHARTOUM DESPITE ANNOUNCED TRUCE

Sun 30 Apr 2023:

Gun battles have been reported around the army headquarters in central Khartoum, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) carried out airstrikes in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman across the Nile River, according to witnesses.

Central Reserve Police, a paramilitary unit, were being deployed across Khartoum, a city of five million, to “protect citizens’ properties” from looting, the force said, confirming an army statement.

The police force said it had arrested 316 “rebels”, in reference to paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fighters, but this was not confirmed by the RSF, which had previously warned the police against joining the battles.

Sudan’s warring factions are locked in a conflict that two weeks of fighting show neither could easily win, raising the spectre of a drawn-out war between an agile paramilitary force and the better-equipped army that could destabilise a fragile region.

Even with thousands of people killed and the capital, Khartoum, turned into a warzone, there has been little sign of compromise between army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Foreign mediators have struggled to arrest the slide to war. A series of ceasefires brokered by the United States and others have been undermined by shelling and air strikes in Khartoum and fighting elsewhere, including the Darfur region in the west.

Civil servants in Khartoum put on ‘open-ended leave’

Local authorities in Khartoum have put civil servants on open-ended leave “due to the security situation”, though the majority of residents have already been hiding at home since the fighting broke out.

Heavy fighting again rocked Sudan’s capital on Sunday as tens of thousands fled the bloody turmoil and army forces clashed with paramilitaries for a third week despite the latest ceasefire, which was formally set to expire at the end of the day.

Two-thirds of hospitals in conflict areas are closed: doctors

A national doctors’ association has said more than two-thirds of hospitals in areas with active fighting are out of service because of a shortage of medical supplies, health workers, water and electricity.

Sudan’s healthcare system is near collapse with dozens of hospitals out of service. Multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations and evacuate employees.

First Red Cross aid flight lands in Sudan

The first plane laden with humanitarian aid from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has landed in Sudan, where deadly clashes between rival generals’ forces have entered their third week.

“The 8 tonnes of humanitarian cargo includes surgical material to support Sudanese hospitals and volunteers from the Sudan Red Crescent Society,” the ICRC said about the shipment from Jordan to Port Sudan.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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