HEAVY ARTILLERY AND GUNFIRE IN KHARTOUM DESPITE NEW TRUCE

Tue 25 Apr 2023:

Heavy artillery and gunfire has been reported in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday despite a 72-hour truce announced by the Sudan Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reporting from Khartoum said while the ceasefire was holding in some parts of the capital, fighting continues in some of the more “contested” areas.

“In the northern part of the capital we could see plumes of smoke rising along the northern banks of the Nile,” she said.

Shipping group Maersk halts Sudan bookings over violence

Container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk has announced it will stop taking new bookings of goods for Sudan.

“These current circumstances mean that we have stopped taking new bookings for now until the situation improves,” Maersk said in a statement commenting on the situation in Sudan.

Maersk is monitoring the situation and looking for solutions to stabilise its supply chain services there, the Danish shipping company added.

UK begins large-scale evacuations from Khartoum

Britain says it has launched evacuation flights for citizens trapped in Sudan.

“UK military flights are due to depart from an airfield outside Khartoum,” a Foreign Office statement said.

“Flights will be open to those with British passports and priority will be given to family groups with children and/or the elderly or individuals with medical conditions.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned earlier that Sudan was on “the edge of the abyss” and that the violence “could engulf the whole region and beyond”.

The fighting has pitted forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against those of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the RSF.

The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that then-president Omar al-Bashir unleashed in Darfur, leading to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, the main civilian bloc which the two generals ousted from power in a 2021 coup, said the truce would allow for “dialogue on the modalities of a permanent ceasefire.”

At least 427 people have been killed and more than 3 700 wounded, according to UN agencies.

Among the latest to die was the assistant administrative attache at Cairo’s embassy in Khartoum, Egypt’s foreign ministry said.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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