Sudan: Fresh conflict sends people escaping from Khartoum

 

In advance of celebrations commemorating the end of Ramadan, violence between the armies of two competing generals continued to erupt in explosions and gunfire Thursday in the capital of Sudan.

Since violence broke out Saturday between soldiers loyal to Sudan's army leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who is in charge of the paramilitary Rapid Support soldiers (RSF), over 300 people have died.

Five million people live in Khartoum, the capital city, where some of the bloodiest fights have occurred. The majority of these residents have been confined to their houses without access to food, water, or power.

Nazek Abdalla, a 38-year-old from southern Khartoum, claimed that the sound of fighter planes and air strikes awakened him and his family. In the hopes that no stray gunshots would strike our building, "we locked our doors and windows."

Hours after another cease-fire failed, the conflict started its sixth day with the sound of gunfire and columns of dense black smoke rising from buildings near the capital's army headquarters and Khartoum International Airport.

The RSF, a potent organisation made up of former Janjaweed militiamen who oversaw years of intense bloodshed in Darfur, had said that both its soldiers and the army would "fully commit to a complete cease-fire" beginning on Wednesday evening and lasting for 24 hours.

However, according to witnesses, shooting continued in Khartoum despite a new cease-fire being broken minutes after it was meant to begin for the second occasion in as many days.

A Sudanese architect who lives in the city of Khartoum remarked, "The shelling hasn't stopped in the conflict areas in Khartoum."

Despite the fact that many people stayed inside, some risked it "to protect themselves and their families to find safety in either other parts of Khartoum or other parts of Sudan," she added.