The Sudanese Health Ministry put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded..reports Asian Lite News
Warplanes on bombing raids drew heavy antiaircraft fire over Khartoum on Saturday as fierce fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitaries entered a third week, violating a renewed truce.
“There is no right to go on fighting for power when the country is falling apart,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said. Guterres threw his support behind African-led mediation efforts. “My appeal is for everything to be done to support an African-led initiative for peace in Sudan,” he said.
The Sudanese Health Ministry put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.
Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.
Tens of thousands have been uprooted within Sudan or embarked on arduous trips to neighboring Chad, Egypt, South Sudan or Ethiopia to flee the battles.
They have agreed to multiple truces but none has taken hold as the number of dead civilians continues to rise and chaos and lawlessness grip Khartoum, a city of five million people where many have been cloistered in their homes lacking food, water, and electricity.
The latest three-day cease-fire — due to expire at midnight (2200 GMT) Sunday — was agreed Thursday after mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations.
“We woke up once again to the sound of fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons blasting all over our neighborhood,” a witness in southern Khartoum said.
Another said fighting had continued since the early morning, especially around the state broadcaster’s headquarters in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman.
Other witnesses reported exchanges of machine gun fire across the Blue Nile in Khartoum North, while the sound of gunfire rang out in Burri in the east of the city.
As battles raged, the rival generals — who seized power in a 2021 coup — took aim at each other in the media, with Burhan branding the RSF a militia that aims “to destroy Sudan” and Dagalo calling the army chief “a traitor.”
The Sudanese Health Ministry put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.
Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.
About 75,000 have been displaced by the fighting in Khartoum and the states of Blue Nile, North Kordofan, as well as the western region of Darfur, the UN said.
Mass exodus
On Saturday, a ferry with around 1,900 evacuees arrived at a Saudi naval base in Jeddah, after crossing the Red Sea from Port Sudan in the latest evacuation to the kingdom by sea. Among the most recent evacuees were 65 Iranians.
Saudi Arabia has so far organized evacuations for almost 4,880 people from 96 countries, the Saudi foreign ministry said.
Merhdad Malekzadh, a 28-year-old Iranian who had been living in Khartoum since he was a child, said no one had expected the fighting to become so intense, and his escape had also been a surprise.
“Because of our nationality, we had never imagined we would come to Saudi Arabia when we were evacuated,” said Malekzadh, whose family runs an oil lubricants business in the Sudanese capital.
“Fortunately, they really helped us. They put their differences aside and worked together. They saved lives,” he added.
Those who were brought to Jeddah by ship on Saturday included a second group of Yemenis.
“The Kingdom worked to provide all the necessary needs of foreign nationals in preparation for facilitating their departures to their countries,” said the Foreign Ministry.
A US-organized convoy carrying American citizens, local staff, and nationals from allied countries arrived in Port Sudan Saturday to join the exodus across the Red Sea, the State Department said.
And the UK Foreign Office said just under 1,900 Britons have been taken out on 21 flights, including a final one which was due to depart on Saturday.
The World Food Programme has said the violence could plunge millions more into hunger in a country where 15 million people — one-third of the population — already need aid to stave off famine.
About 70 percent of hospitals in areas near the fighting have been put out of service and many have been shelled, the doctors’ union said.
In West Darfur state, at least 96 people were reported to have been killed in the city of El Geneina this week, the UN said.
“What’s happening in Darfur is terrible, the society is falling apart, we see tribes that now try to arm themselves,” Guterres said.
Sudan’s former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok warned that the conflict could deteriorate into one of the world’s worst civil wars if not stopped early.
“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper… Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play,” Hamdok told an event in Nairobi.
