Residents Near Sudanese Capital Ordered To Evacuate Over Fighting

Smoke rises in Omdurman, near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum North, Sudan April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Smoke rises in Omdurman, near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum North, Sudan April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
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Residents Near Sudanese Capital Ordered To Evacuate Over Fighting

Smoke rises in Omdurman, near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum North, Sudan April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Smoke rises in Omdurman, near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum North, Sudan April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah

Residents of an area near Sudan's capital were ordered to evacuate, locals said, as fighting between the army and paramilitary forces continues to shake the capital.

"Heavy artillery fire" fell on densely populated areas of the Sudanese capital and nearby areas, witnesses told AFP. In adjacent Omdurman, Khartoum's battle-scarred twin city, shelling fell on residential homes.

The army and paramilitary forces ordered the evacuation of civilians from Abu Rouf, according to the neighbourhood's resistance committee, one of the many groups that used to organise pro-democracy demonstrations and now provides assistance to families in the line of fire.

The army conducted airstrikes and fired artillery at the Shambat Bridge to cut off access to the area from their foes, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The paramilitary group used the bridge to resupply from the other side of the Nile, according to a resident discussing the evacuations.

The war between the army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed more than 3,900 people, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

It has displaced more than 3.3 million, according to the United Nations, and plunged millions more into hunger.

Much of the country's already fragile infrastructure has been destroyed, with more than 80 percent of Sudan's hospitals no longer in service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The few health facilities that remain often come under fire or are looted, and struggle to provide care.

Consequently, for the victims of sexual violence that has run rampant during the war, "receiving the necessary healthcare" is an "immense challenge", Souleima Ishaq al-Khalifa, the head doctor in the government's agency combating violence against women, told AFP.

Since April 15, Khalifa and her colleagues have documented 108 sexual assaults in Khartoum and Darfur -- the restive western region on the border with Chad where a quarter of Sudan's 48 million people live.

That toll is likely underestimated, like the human losses, as victims and caregivers are unable to travel due to the conflict.

Survivors of rape face a double burden, she adds, as "there are no more medicines in Khartoum," and "in Nyala (South Darfur), they cannot reach the hospital because there is an RSF base in the way".

Entire towns and villages have been destroyed in Darfur, an RSF stronghold, which was already ravaged in the 2000s by a bloody civil war and is now an epicentre of the ongoing fighting.



WHO: Medicine Critically Low Due to Gaza Aid Blockade

Palestinians gather at a damaged building, at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia, in Gaza City, April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
Palestinians gather at a damaged building, at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia, in Gaza City, April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
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WHO: Medicine Critically Low Due to Gaza Aid Blockade

Palestinians gather at a damaged building, at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia, in Gaza City, April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
Palestinians gather at a damaged building, at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia, in Gaza City, April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

Medicine stocks are critically low due to the aid blockade in Gaza, making it hard to keep hospitals even partially operational, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

"We are critically low in our three warehouses, on antibiotics, IV fluids and blood bags," WHO official Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.

The Israeli military on Friday issued an urgent warning to residents in several neighborhoods in northern Gaza, calling on them to evacuate immediately. Strikes earlier this week killed at least 23 people, health officials said, including eight women and eight children.

Since Israel ended an eight-week ceasefire last month, it said it will push further into Gaza until Hamas releases the hostages. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed, according to the United Nations.

Israel imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. It has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.