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Khartoum Region under Bombardment as Sudan's Rivals Talk

Bags of charcoal are sold on the side of a street in Khartoum to be used as fighting between rival Sudanese generals continues, on May 13, 2023. (AFP)
Bags of charcoal are sold on the side of a street in Khartoum to be used as fighting between rival Sudanese generals continues, on May 13, 2023. (AFP)
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Khartoum Region under Bombardment as Sudan's Rivals Talk

Bags of charcoal are sold on the side of a street in Khartoum to be used as fighting between rival Sudanese generals continues, on May 13, 2023. (AFP)
Bags of charcoal are sold on the side of a street in Khartoum to be used as fighting between rival Sudanese generals continues, on May 13, 2023. (AFP)

Shelling and air strikes pounded parts of Sudan's capital on Sunday with little sign that warring military factions were ready to back down in a conflict that has killed hundreds despite ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia.

Khartoum and the adjoining cities of Bahri and Omdurman across the Nile's two branches have been the main theater of conflict along with western Darfur province since the army and Rapid Support Forces paramilitary started fighting a month ago.

Shelling struck Bahri and air strikes hit Omdurman early on Sunday, according to a Reuters reporter and witnesses. Al Arabiya television reported heavy clashes in central Khartoum.

"There were heavy air strikes near us in Saliha that shook the doors of the house," said Salma Yassin, a teacher in Omdurman.

The fighting has killed hundreds of people, sent 200,000 into neighboring countries as refugees, displaced another 700,000 inside Sudan triggering a humanitarian catastrophe and threatens to draw in outside powers and destabilize the region.

The number of people killed in fighting on Friday and Saturday in Geneina, capital of West Darfur, reached more than 100, including the imam of the city's old mosque, the Darfur Bar Association said in a statement.

The local rights group blamed the killings, looting and arson in Geneina, where hundreds died in violence last month, on attacks by armed groups on motorbikes and the RSF. The RSF has denied responsibility for the unrest.

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, had shared power after a 2021 coup that itself followed a 2019 uprising that ousted Omar al-Bashir.

But they fell out over the terms and timing of a planned transition to civilian rule and neither man has shown he is ready for concessions, with the army controlling air power and the RSF dug deep into city districts.

Truce deals have been repeatedly broken but the United States and Saudi Arabia are mediating talks in Jeddah aimed at securing a lasting ceasefire.

"You don't know how long this war will continue ... The house became unsafe and we don't have enough money to travel out of Khartoum. Why are we paying the price of Burhan and Hemedti's war?" said Yassin, the teacher.

On Thursday the sides agreed a "declaration of principles" to protect civilians and secure humanitarian access, but with Sunday's discussions due to address.

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Arab World

Guterres: Sudan's Warring Forces are Escalating Attacks and Outsiders are Fueling the Fire

Members of Sudan's security forces take part in the opening ceremony of a headquarter facility in the army-controlled Port Sudan, where the government loyal to the army is based on the Red Sea coast, on October 28, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Members of Sudan's security forces take part in the opening ceremony of a headquarter facility in the army-controlled Port Sudan, where the government loyal to the army is based on the Red Sea coast, on October 28, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
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Guterres: Sudan's Warring Forces are Escalating Attacks and Outsiders are Fueling the Fire

Members of Sudan's security forces take part in the opening ceremony of a headquarter facility in the army-controlled Port Sudan, where the government loyal to the army is based on the Red Sea coast, on October 28, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Members of Sudan's security forces take part in the opening ceremony of a headquarter facility in the army-controlled Port Sudan, where the government loyal to the army is based on the Red Sea coast, on October 28, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

Sudan’s warring military and paramilitary forces are escalating attacks with outside powers “fueling the fire,” which is intensifying the nightmare of hunger and disease for millions, the United Nations chief said Monday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the UN Security Council that the 18-month war faces the serious possibility of “igniting regional instability from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa to the Red Sea.”
In a grim report, Guterres said the Sudanese people are living through numerous “nightmares” – from killings and “unspeakable atrocities” including widespread rapes to fast-spreading diseases, mass ethnic violence, and 750,000 people facing “catastrophic food insecurity” and famine conditions in North Darfur displacement sites.
He singled out “ shocking reports of mass killings and sexual violence ” in villages in east-central Gezira province in recent days. The UN and a doctors’ group said paramilitary fighters ran riot in the region in a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one town.
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions including western Darfur.
The war has killed more than 24,000 people so far, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group monitoring the conflict since it started. It has created the world's worst displacement crisis, with more than 11 million people fleeing their homes including 3 million to neighboring countries.
Guterres urged both sides to immediately agree to a cessation of hostilities, ensure the protection of civilians for which they bear primary responsibility, and enable humanitarian aid to flow to millions in need.
The secretary-general said he is “horrified” by reports that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, continue to attack civilians in North Darfur’s capital El Fasher and surrounding areas, including displacement sites where famine has been confirmed.
“And I am also horrified by reports of attacks against civilians perpetrated by forces affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum, and by continuing mass civilian casualties due to apparently indiscriminate airstrikes in populated areas,” he said.
Guterres said those who violate international humanitarian law must be held accountable.
The war began four years after a pro-democracy uprising forced the military’s ouster of Sudan’s longtime Omar al-Bashir which was followed by a short-lived transition to democracy.
It has been marked by atrocities such as mass rape and ethnicity-motivated killings. The United Nations and international rights groups say these acts amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in the western region of Darfur, which has been facing a bitter onslaught by the RSF, which was born out of the Janjaweed.
Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, against populations that identify as Central or East African. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.
That legacy appears to have returned, with the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, saying in January there are grounds to believe both sides may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide in Darfur.