Sudanese awaits relief as fighting continues on Wednesday despite a ceasefire established two days ago, while mass displacement and dire humanitarian conditions persist, with a significant exodus of Sudanese to neighboring countries.

Fighting had eased but not stopped in Sudan on Wednesday, the second full day of a ceasefire that has raised cautious hopes among beleaguered civilians that aid corridors and escape routes will open soon.

Residents told AFP that sporadic air strikes and artillery fire have still echoed across the capital. Still, the US and Saudi observers said, “fighting in Khartoum appeared to be less intense” since the one-week truce entered into force late Monday.

However, Washington and Riyadh, which brokered the ceasefire deal between the forces of two rival generals, pointed to reports “indicating that both sides violated the agreement.”

Nonetheless, they stressed that preparations were underway “to deliver lifesaving assistance” to the people of Sudan, who have endured more than five weeks of fighting that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.

The war broke out on April 15, sparking frantic mass evacuations of thousands of foreigners and forcing more than 1.3 million Sudanese to flee their homes internally and across borders.

People sell food at an open market in southern Khartoum, on May 24, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

The chaos has left millions hunkering in their homes to hide from the combatants and roaming looters amid power blackouts and desperate shortages of water, food, medicines, and other staples.

The fighting pits Sudan’s de facto leader, the army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, nicknamed “Hemeti,” who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

It has displaced more than a million people inside Sudan, the International Organization for Migration reported on Wednesday, with a further 319,000 people seeking refuge across borders.

According to the United Nations, those unable to flee have run low on essential supplies, and more than half the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid.

Hopes for quick relief from the fighting and suffering were dimmed by the fact that a series of earlier ceasefires were quickly broken, with both sides trading blame for the violations.

Saudi and US mediators also voiced “concern” that the warring sides had sought to gain military advantage in the lead-up to the truce.

Meanwhile, a mass exodus of Sudanese has continued into neighboring countries, including Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan, sparking regional fears the conflict will spread across borders because of transnational ethnic ties.

Fighting has been especially deadly in the western Darfur region, where Sudan’s then-dictator Omar al-Bashir unleashed in the early 2000s the notorious Janjaweed militia, and some 300,000 people were killed.

Miroslava Salazar with AFP

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