Intensity of clashes in Sudan appears to ease amid three-day truce
KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudanese in the capital of Khartoum and the neighboring city of Omdurman reported sporadic clashes early Wednesday between the military and a rival paramilitary force but said the intensity of fighting had dwindled on the second day of a three-day truce.
Many residents of the capital emerged from their homes to seek food and water, lining up at bakeries or grocery stores, witnesses said. Some inspected shops or homes that had been destroyed or looted during the fighting. Others joined the tens of thousands who have been streaming out of the city in recent days.
“There is a sense of calm in my area and neighborhood,” said Mahasen Ali, a tea vendor who lives in Khartoum’s southern neighborhood of May. “But all are afraid of what’s next.” She said that despite the relative lull, the sound of gunfire and explosions could still be heard in the city.
Clashes were centered in more limited pockets of Khartoum and Omdurman, residents said, mainly around the military’s headquarters and the Republican Palace, the seat of power. An exchange of fire rattled the upscale Kafouri neighborhood, where many fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are deployed.
Also on Wednesday, the military said Sudan’s former autocratic ruler Omar Bashir was being held in a military-run hospital, the first official statement on Bashir’s location since the fighting erupted. An attack on the prison where Bashir and many of his former officials had been held raised questions concerning his whereabouts and allegations that he was freed.
In a statement, the military said Bashir, former Defense Minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein and other former officials had been moved to the military-run Aliyaa hospital before clashes broke out across the country. Bashir was ousted in 2019 amid a popular uprising. Both Bashir and Hussein are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the conflict in the Darfur region.
The U.S. has invested enormous political capital in peace for Sudan, which would also benefit the fight against terrorism.
The relative reduction of fighting Wednesday was a rare moment of easing for the millions of Sudanese who have been caught in the crossfire since the forces of the country’s two top generals went to war with each other April 15. The fighting has pushed the population close to breaking point, with food growing more difficult to obtain, electricity cut off across much of the capital and other cities, and many hospitals shut down.
In a country where one-third of the population of 46 million already needed humanitarian assistance, multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations. The United Nations’ refugee agency said it was gearing up for potentially tens of thousands of people fleeing to neighboring countries.
It was not clear how long the relative calm would last. A number of short cease-fires over the last week have either failed or brought only intermittent lulls, enough for the dramatic evacuation of hundreds of foreigners by air and land. The two warring generals, army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan and RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have so far ignored calls for negotiations to end the crisis and have seemed determined to crush each other.
At least 459 people, including civilians and fighters, have been killed, and more than 4,000 wounded since fighting began, the U.N. health agency said, citing Sudan’s Health Ministry. The Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties, said at least 295 civilians had been killed and 1,790 others injured.
Sudan’s top general says the military is committed to a transition to civilian rule, as his forces battle a powerful rival group for supremacy.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the power struggle risked “lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years and setting development back by decades.”
Guterres cited reports of armed clashes across the country, with people fleeing their homes in the Blue Nile and North Kordofan states and across Western Darfur as well. Joyce Msuya, the assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council that “there have been numerous reports of sexual and gender-based violence.”
Msuya said the U.N. has received reports “of tens of thousands of people arriving in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.”
The 72-hour cease-fire announced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was to last until late Thursday. Many fear that fighting will escalate once the evacuations of foreigners, which appeared to be in their last stages, are completed.
Biden says that the U.S. military had completed the evacuation of U.S. Embassy personnel in Sudan, and called for end to “unconscionable” violence
Bus stations in the capital have been packed with people camping out, waiting for a spot on a bus. Drivers increased prices, sometimes 10-fold, for routes to the border crossing with Egypt or the eastern Red Sea city of Port Sudan. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. Tens of thousands more have fled to calmer provinces near Khartoum.
At the Arqin border crossing into Egypt, crowds of people waiting to get through spent the night in the open desert. “The crossing point is overwhelmed, and authorities on both sides don’t have the capacity to handle such a growing number of arrivals,” said Moaz Ser, a teacher waiting at the crossing with his wife and three children.
In the capital, Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman, a Sudanese American physician who headed the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Khartoum, was stabbed to death outside his home, the Doctors’ Syndicate said. He had practiced medicine for many years in the U.S., where his children reside, but had returned to Sudan to train doctors.
The World Health Organization expressed concern that one of the warring parties had seized control of the central public health laboratory in Khartoum, where samples of polio, measles and cholera are stored. Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO representative in Sudan, warned that after staff members were expelled and power was cut, it was not possible to properly manage the biological materials.
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