Despite several truces and other attempts at negotiation, artillery fire again rocked Khartoum on Saturday as deadly fighting between the army and paramilitaries in Sudan entered its 8th week.
The sound of fighting echoed in Khartoum’s northern suburbs, and a hail of shells rained down on the south of the capital, killing several people.
Since the start of the bloody war between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo on April 15, the conflict has already claimed the lives of over 1,800 people and displaced more than 1.5 million people and refugees.
Humanitarians and volunteers are finding it difficult to recover bodies “due to security constraints”.
Talks held in Jeddah, on the Red Sea, between emissaries of the belligerents had already resulted in a commitment in principle to “protect civilians” and allow aid workers to “collect, register and bury the dead in coordination with the competent authorities”.
But on Wednesday, the army withdrew from these negotiations, and the following day the United States and Saudi Arabia said they were officially suspending them.
At a time when a third of Sudan’s 45 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, aid shipments arriving by air are blocked at customs, and international staff are denied visas to come and relieve exhausted local workers or those holed up in their homes. Eighteen aid workers have been killed since the start of the conflict.
On Friday, the UN Security Council extended the UN’s political mission in Sudan by just six months, and its head Volker Perthes is no longer welcome in the country in the midst of a deadly conflict.
Last week, General Burhane called for the head of the mission to be sacked, blaming him for the war. But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his “absolute confidence” in Mr. Perthes.
Maïssa Ben Fares, with AFP
