No respite in Sudan as truce falls apart, rivals battle – Trinidad Guardian

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This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows a fire near several hospitals in Khartoum, Sudan, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Fighting between forces loyal to duelling generals raged in Sudan for a fifth day Wednesday, April 19, hours after an internationally brokered truce was supposed to have come into effect. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Ter­ri­fied Su­danese who have been trapped for days in their homes by fight­ing in the cap­i­tal of Khar­toum fled on Wednes­day, haul­ing out what­ev­er be­long­ings they could car­ry and try­ing to get out of the city, af­ter an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly bro­kered truce failed and ri­val forces bat­tled in the streets for a fifth day.
The swift fail­ure of the 24-hour cease-fire, de­spite pres­sure from the Unit­ed States and re­gion­al pow­ers, sug­gest­ed that Su­dan’s two top gen­er­als were de­ter­mined to crush each oth­er in a po­ten­tial­ly pro­longed fight for con­trol of the coun­try. It al­so un­der­scored the in­abil­i­ty of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to force a stop to the vi­o­lence, with mil­lions of peo­ple caught in the cross­fire.
As ex­plo­sions and heavy gun­fire shook Khar­toum, res­i­dents of mul­ti­ple neigh­bour­hoods told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press they could see hun­dreds, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren, leav­ing their homes, car­ry­ing lug­gage, some leav­ing by foot, oth­ers crowd­ing in­to ve­hi­cles. Res­i­dents had been des­per­ate­ly hold­ing out with food and oth­er sup­plies run­ning out, hop­ing for a halt in the may­hem on their doorsteps — gun­fire, shelling and airstrikes, along with armed fight­ers roam­ing the streets loot­ing shops and at­tack­ing passers-by.
“Khar­toum has be­come a ghost city,” said Atiya Ab­dal­la Atiya, sec­re­tary of the Doc­tors’ Syn­di­cate, who is still in the cap­i­tal.
The gen­er­als’ fight for pow­er has caught mil­lions of Su­danese in the cross­fire, as their forces have bat­tled it out since Sat­ur­day with heavy ma­chine guns, ar­tillery and airstrikes in res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods of Khar­toum, its neigh­bour­ing city Om­dur­man and oth­er ma­jor towns of the coun­try.
Near­ly 300 peo­ple have been killed in the past five days, the U.N. health agency said, but the toll is like­ly high­er, since many bod­ies have been left in the streets, un­reach­able be­cause of clash­es.
A 24-hour cease-fire was to have been in ef­fect from sun­down Tues­day to sun­down Wednes­day. It was the most con­crete at­tempt yet to bring a pause that it was hoped could be ex­pand­ed in­to a longer truce.
It came af­ter U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken spoke sep­a­rate­ly by phone with the two ri­vals — the leader of the armed forces, Gen. Ab­del Fat­tah Burhan, and the head of the para­mil­i­tary Rapid Sup­port Forces, Gen. Mo­hammed Ham­dan Da­ga­lo. Egypt, which backs the Su­danese mil­i­tary, and Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, which have close ties to the RSF, have al­so been call­ing on all sides to stand down.
But fight­ing con­tin­ued af­ter the in­tend­ed start of the truce and through the night. Each side blamed the oth­er for the fail­ure.
Fierce clash­es be­tween the army and RSF were re­port­ed Wednes­day morn­ing around the mil­i­tary’s head­quar­ters in cen­tral Khar­toum and the near­by air­port, as well as around the state tele­vi­sion build­ing across the riv­er in Om­dur­man. Bombs and ar­tillery could be heard around the city.
A high-rise in the city cen­ter was on fire with burn­ing de­bris falling from its top floors, ac­cord­ing to footage by the Al Ara­biya news net­work.
“The bat­tles in­ten­si­fied in the morn­ing af­ter spo­radic gun­fire over the night,” said Tahani Abass, a promi­nent rights ad­vo­cate who lives close to the mil­i­tary head­quar­ters. “Bomb­ing and ex­plo­sions are shak­ing our hous­es.”
Ma­hasen Ali, a tea ven­dor, said many in her south Khar­toum neigh­bour­hood have left their homes to take refuge in open ar­eas, hop­ing to be safe from shelling hit­ting build­ings. Oth­ers fled the city to stay with rel­a­tives else­where, she said.
Armed men were roam­ing the streets, storm­ing shops and hous­es. “They take what­ev­er they can, and if you re­sist, they kill you,” she said.
For­eign­ers, in­clud­ing aid work­ers and diplo­mats, have al­so been trapped in the fight­ing.
Ger­man me­dia, in­clud­ing the DPA news agency, re­port­ed that three A400M trans­port planes were dis­patched to evac­u­ate Ger­man cit­i­zens from Khar­toum, but turned around Wednes­day af­ter re­fu­elling in Greece due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns in Khar­toum,
In Brus­sels, Dana Spinant, a spokes­woman for the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, con­firmed re­ports that a se­nior EU of­fi­cial had been shot and wound­ed in Su­dan. Spinant did not pro­vide de­tails.
The New York Times iden­ti­fied the of­fi­cial as Wim Fransen, a Bel­gian na­tion­al. The re­port said Fransen was re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment for se­ri­ous in­juries. It said he had gone miss­ing on Sun­day evening and that his col­leagues tracked him down Tues­day.
An­oth­er spokes­woman con­firmed that the EU of­fice in Khar­toum is still op­er­at­ing. The EU am­bas­sador, who was as­sault­ed when uniden­ti­fied gun­men broke in­to his res­i­dence sev­er­al days ago, is back at work, she said, adding that the EU del­e­ga­tion is not be­ing evac­u­at­ed and every­one is safe.
The bat­tles, with heavy ma­chine guns, ar­tillery and airstrikes, have wreaked ex­ten­sive dam­age, play­ing out in the streets of Khar­toum and the city of Om­dur­man on the op­po­site bank of the Nile Riv­er, as well as in oth­er key towns around Su­dan.
Dozens of health care fa­cil­i­ties in Khar­toum and around the coun­try have stopped func­tion­ing be­cause they are close to clash­es, the Su­danese Doc­tors’ Syn­di­cate said Wednes­day. At least nine hos­pi­tals were bombed and 16 were force­ful­ly evac­u­at­ed, it said.
The U.N.‘s World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion said Wednes­day at least 296 peo­ple have been killed and more than 3,000 wound­ed since fight­ing be­gan, with­out of­fer­ing a break­down of civil­ians and com­bat­ants killed. The Doc­tors’ Syn­di­cate, which mon­i­tors ca­su­al­ties, said Tues­day that at least 174 civil­ians have been killed and hun­dreds wound­ed.
Blinken had de­scribed the pro­posed one-day hu­man­i­tar­i­an cease-fire as a build­ing block for a longer truce and a re­turn to even­tu­al ne­go­ti­a­tions. Their fail­ure to pause fight­ing for even a day, de­spite high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic pres­sure, sug­gests the gen­er­als re­main bent on pur­su­ing a mil­i­tary vic­to­ry.
The con­flict be­tween the mil­i­tary and the RSF has once again de­railed Su­dan’s tran­si­tion to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rule af­ter decades of dic­ta­tor­ship and civ­il war.
A pop­u­lar up­ris­ing four years ago helped de­pose long-time au­to­crat Omar al-Bashir, but Burhan and Da­ga­lo al­lied to car­ry out a 2021 coup. Both gen­er­als have a long his­to­ry of hu­man rights abus­es, and their forces have cracked down on pro-democ­ra­cy ac­tivists.
Un­der in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure, Burhan and Da­ga­lo re­cent­ly agreed to a frame­work agree­ment with po­lit­i­cal par­ties and pro-democ­ra­cy groups. But the sign­ing was re­peat­ed­ly de­layed as ten­sions rose over the in­te­gra­tion of the RSF in­to the armed forces and the fu­ture chain of com­mand — ten­sions that ex­plod­ed in­to vi­o­lence Sat­ur­day. —KHAR­TOUM, Su­dan (AP)
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Sto­ry by JACK JEF­FERY and SAMY MAGDY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. Samy Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Jon Gam­brell in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Lorne Cook in Brus­sels con­tributed to this re­port.

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