Sudan
Sudan fighting eclipses new truce as aid groups raise alarm
Sudanese and foreigners streamed out of the capital of Khartoum and other battle zones, as fighting Tuesday shook a new three-day truce brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Aid agencies raised increasing alarm over the crumbling humanitarian situation in a country reliant on outside help.
A series of short cease-fires the past week have either failed outright or brought only intermittent lulls in the fighting that has raged between forces loyal to the country's two top generals since April 15. The lulls have been enough for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of foreigners by air and land, which continued Tuesday.
But they have brought no relief to millions of Sudanese caught in the crossfire, struggling to find food, shelter and medical care as explosions, gunfire and looters wreck their neighborhoods. In a country where a third of the population of 46 million already needed humanitarian assistance, multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations and dozens of hospitals have been forced to shut down. The U.N. refugee agency said it was gearing up for potentially tens of thousands of people fleeing into neighboring countries.
Also Read: UN warns of lab risk, more displacement amid Sudan conflict
Calls for negotiations to end the crisis in Africa’s third-largest nation have been ignored. For many Sudanese, the departure of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners and the closure of embassies are terrifying signs that international powers expect the mayhem to only worsen.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the power struggle between rival generals and their military forces is not only putting Sudan's future at risk, “it is lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years, and setting development back by decades.”
The U.N. chief urged the Sudanese military, commanded by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, “to silence the guns” immediately.
Also Read: UN fears more ‘displacement’ from Sudan despite cease-fire
""The conflict will not, and must not, be resolved on the battlefield," Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council late Tuesday.
U.N. special envoy for Sudan Volker Perthes, who moved from Khartoum to Port Sudan with most U.N. staff and many humanitarian organizations, accused both warring parties of fighting “with disregard for the laws and norms of war,” citing attacks on densely populated areas.
With supply lines running out, he said, there is mounting fear of increased criminality, and “reports of prisoners being released from detention centers across Khartoum have compounded these fears.”
Thousands of Sudanese have been fleeing Khartoum and its neighboring city of Omdurman. Bus stations in the capital were packed Tuesday morning with people who had spent the night there in hopes of getting on a departing bus.
Drivers increased prices, sometimes tenfold, for routes to the border crossing with Egypt or the eastern Red Sea city of Port Sudan. Fuel prices have skyrocketed, to $67 a gallon from $4.20, and prices for food and water have doubled in many cases, the Norwegian Refugee Council said.
Also Read: Bangladesh to evacuate nationals from Sudan through other countries: Shahriar Alam
Those lucky enough to reach the border crossings face additional hardships.
Moaz al-Ser, a teacher, arrived at the Arqin border crossing with Egypt early Tuesday with his wife and three children after a harrowing trip from Omdurman. They were among hundreds of families who were waiting to be processed. Many had spent the night in an open area near the border.
“The crossing point is overwhelmed and authorities on both sides don’t have the capacity to handle such a growing number of arrivals,” he said.
Secretary-General Guterres cited reports of armed clashes across the country, with people fleeing their homes in Blue Nile and North Kordofan states and across Western Darfur as well. Terrified people remain trapped indoors with dwindling food, water, medicine and fuel, and health services near collapse, he said.
Joyce Msuya, the assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said at least 20 hospitals have been forced to close due to damage, military use or lack of resources. She also told the council “there have been numerous reports of sexual and gender-based violence.”
Also Read: Fitful start to new 3-day truce in Sudan; airlifts continue
The 72-hour cease-fire announced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to last until late Thursday night, extending a nominal three-day truce over the weekend.
The rival forces said Tuesday they would observe the cease-fire. In separate announcements, they said Saudi Arabia played a role in the negotiations.
But fighting continued, with explosions, gunfire and the roar of warplanes overhead around the capital region.
“They stop only when they run out of ammunition,” Omdurman resident Amin Ishaq said. Al-Roumy, a medical facility in Omdurman, said it suspended its services after it was hit by a shell Tuesday.
“They don’t respect cease-fires,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, a senior figure in the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a group that monitors casualties.
Dr. Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman, a Sudanese-American physician who headed the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Khartoum, was stabbed to death outside his home, the Doctors' Syndicate said. He had practiced medicine for many years in the United States, where his children reside, but had returned to Sudan to train doctors. Colleagues said he had been treating those wounded in the fighting in recent days and that it was not known who killed him.
The World Heath Organization, meanwhile, expressed concern that one of the warring parties had seized control of the central public health laboratory in Khartoum.
“That is extremely, extremely dangerous because we have polio isolates in the lab. We have measles isolates in the lab. We have cholera isolates in the lab,” Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO representative in Sudan, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva by video call from Port Sudan.
He did not identify which side held the facility but said they had expelled technicians and power was cut, so it was not possible to properly manage the biological materials. “There is a huge biological risk.”
Clashes meanwhile escalated in the western Darfur region, residents said. Armed groups, wearing RSF uniforms, attacked several areas in Genena, a provincial capital, burning and looting properties and camps for displaced people.
“Fierce battles are raging all over the city,” said a doctor in Genena, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. "All eyes are on Khartoum but the situation here is unimaginable.”
Women and children were fleeing homes in the city center, and the city's main hospital has not functioned for days, with unknown numbers of dead and wounded, she said.
More fighters on motorcycles and horses have flowed into the city to join the battles, with dead bodies lying in the streets, according to Darfur 24, an online news outlet focusing on covering the war-wrecked region.
The RSF has its roots in Darfur, where it emerged from the notorious Janjaweed militias that committed atrocities there while putting down a rebellion in the 2000s.
At least 459 people, including civilians and fighters, have been killed, and over 4,000 wounded since fighting began, the U.N. health agency said, citing Sudan’s Health Ministry. Among them were 166 deaths and over 2,300 wounded in Khartoum, it said.
Secretary-General Guterres said four U.N. staff were killed. The U.N. said they were three Sudanese working for the World Food Program and one Sudanese working for the International Organization for Migration.
Those who are able have made their way to the Egyptian border, Port Sudan or relatively calmer provinces along the Nile. But the full scale of displacement has been difficult to measure.
Msuya said the U.N. has received reports “of tens of thousands of people arriving in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.”
Mohammed Mahdi, of the International Rescue Committee, warned that resources were growing thin at the Tunaydbah refugee camp in eastern Sudan after 3,000 people fleeing Khartoum took refuge there, joining some 28,000 refugees from Ethiopia.
At least 20,000 people have fled from Khartoum to the city of Wad Madani, 160 kilometers (100 miles) to the south, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Some 20,000 Sudanese have fled to Chad and around 4,000 South Sudanese refugees living in Sudan have returned home, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which is gearing up for tens of thousands more to flee to neighboring countries.
UN fears more ‘displacement’ from Sudan despite cease-fire
The U.N. refugee agency warned Tuesday of “further displacement” of people from Sudan after thousands streamed into neighboring Chad and South Sudan despite a tenuous cease-fire between the two warring Sudanese generals battling for control of the country.
The fighting has plunged Sudan into chaos, pushing the already heavily aid-dependent African nation to the brink of collapse. Before the clashes, the U.N. estimated that a third of Sudan's population — or about 16 million people — needed assistance, a figure that is likely to increase .
Since the outbreak of the fighting on April 15, at least 20,000 Sudanese have fled into Chad and some 4,000 South Sudanese refugees — who had been living in Sudan — have returned to their home country, UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarrado said Tuesday.
Also Read: Fitful start to new 3-day truce in Sudan; airlifts continue
The figures could rise, she cautioned. Sarrado did not have figures for the five other countries neighboring Sudan, but UNHCR has cited unspecified numbers of those fleeing Sudan arriving in Egypt.
“The fighting looks set to trigger further displacement both within and outside the country,” she said, speaking at a U.N. briefing in Geneva.
The UNHCR was scaling up its operations, she said, even as foreign governments have raced to evacuate their embassy staff and citizens from Sudan. Many Sudanese have desperately sought ways to escape the chaos, fearing late their all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed.
Also Read: Why Sudan's conflict matters to the rest of the world
Several previous cease-fires have failed, although intermittent lulls during the weekend’s major Muslim holiday allowed for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners by air and land.
More than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees live in Sudan, a quarter of them in the capital of Khartoum, where they are directly affected by the fighting. Overall, Sudan hosts 1.1 million refugees, according to the UNHCR. There are also more than 3 million internally displaced persons, mostly in Darfur, a region mired in decades-long conflict, it said.
Along with the refugees, the U.N. migration agency said there are 300,000 registered migrants, as well as tens of thousands of unregistered migrants in the country.
Marie-Helene Verney, the UNHCR's chief in South Sudan, said from its capital of Juba that “the planning figure that we have for the most likely scenario is 125,000 returns of South Sudanese refugees into South Sudan, and 45,000 refugees,” Sudanese fleeing the fighting.
Also Read: Which countries are evacuating citizens from Sudan?
The U.N. Population Fund has said that the fighting threatens tens of thousands of pregnant women, including 24,000 women expected to give birth in the coming weeks. For 219,000 pregnant women across the country it is too dangerous to venture outside their homes to seek urgent care in hospitals and clinics amid the clashes, the agency said.
Dozens of hospitals have shuttered in Khartoum and elsewhere across the country due to the fighting, and dwindling medical and fuel supplies according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate.
“If the violence does not stop, there is a danger that the health system will collapse,” the U.N. agency warned last Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed the announced cease-fire as a “potential lifesaver for civilians” trapped in their homes in fighting-hit areas.
“It’s clear that this ceasefire must be implemented up and down the chain of command and that it must hold for it to give a real respite to civilians suffering from the fighting,” said Patrick Youssef, ICRC’s regional director for Africa. He called on the international community to help find a “durable political solution to end the bloodshed.”
Spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said it has been forced to “reduce our footprint” because of the fighting. and he pointed to “acute shortages of food, water, medicines and fuel and limited communications and electricity” and new reports of looting of humanitarian warehouses and aid stockpiles.
“The humanitarian needs in Sudan were already at record levels before this recent eruption of fighting … some 15.8 million people — that’s about a third of the population — required humanitarian assistance,” he said.
“This (fighting) coming on top of it, is, I would say, more than just a slap in the face. It’s more than a fist in the face of those people who were already in need,” Laerke added, echoing the calls for "the fighting to stop.”
Other aid agencies, including the World Food Program, were forced to suspend or scale down its operations in Sudan following attacks on aid workers and humanitarian compounds and warehouses. At least five aid workers, three from the WFP, were killed since April 15.
The WFP has said its offices and warehouses in Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur, were attacked and looted last week. An ICRC office in Nyala was also looted, and warehouses for the Sudanese Red Crescent in Khartoum were attacked last week by armed men who took several of their vehicles and trucks, the charity said.
Arshad Malik with Save the Children Sudan urged the warring sides to ensure protection for humanitarian workers to allow resumption of aid flow in Sudan, which was “already going through its worst-ever humanitarian emergency” before fighting erupted.
“Now we’re seeing more children than ever going hungry. About 12% of the country’s 22 million children are going without enough food,” he said.
Fitful start to new 3-day truce in Sudan; airlifts continue
Sudan's warring generals pledged Tuesday to observe a new three-day truce that was brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in an attempt to pull Africa's third-largest nation back from the abyss.
The claims were immediately undercut by the sound of heavy gunfire and explosions in the capital of Khartoum. Residents said warplanes were flying overhead.
Several previous cease-fires declared since the April 15 outbreak of fighting were not observed, although intermittent lulls during the weekend's major Muslim holiday allowed for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners by air and land.
For many Sudanese, the departure of foreigners and closure of embassies is a terrifying sign that international powers expect a worsening of the fighting that has already pushed the population into disaster.
Also Read: Why Sudan's conflict matters to the rest of the world
Many Sudanese have desperately sought ways to escape the chaos, fearing that the rival camps will escalate their all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed.
In Khartoum, bus stations were packed Tuesday morning with people who had spent the night there in hopes of getting on a departing bus. Drivers increased prices, sometimes tenfold, for routes to Port Sudan or the border crossing with Egypt.
Late Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he had helped broker a new 72-hour cease-fire. The truce would be an extension of the nominal three-day holiday cease-fire.
The Sudanese military, commanded by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, said Tuesday they would observe the cease-fire. In separate announcements, they said Saudi Arabia played a role in the negotiations.
Also Read: Which countries are evacuating citizens from Sudan?
“This cease-fire aims to establish humanitarian corridors, allowing citizens and residents to access essential resources, healthcare, and safe zones, while also evacuating diplomatic missions,” the RSF said in a statement.
The army announcement used similar language, adding that it will abide by the truce “on the condition that the rebels commit to stopping all hostilities.”
But fighting continued, including in Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from Khartoum. Omdurman resident Amin Ishaq said there were clashes early Tuesday around the state television headquarters and around military bases just outside Omdurman.
“They did not stop fighting,” he said. “They stop only when they run out of ammunition.”
“Sounds of gunfire, explosions and flying warplanes are still heard across Khartoum,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, a senior figure in the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a group that monitors casualties. “They don’t respect cease-fires.”
Also Read: Diplomats flee Sudan fighting as citizens struggle to escape
Atiya said he suspected the main purpose of declaring a new case-fire was to allow for more foreigners to be evacuated.
Sudan was once a symbol of hope because of its fitful efforts to transition from decades of autocratic rule to democracy. Now it faces a bleak future. Even before April 15, one-third of the population of 46 million relied on humanitarian assistance. Most of those providing aid have suspended operations.
In the past 11 days, Sudanese have faced a harrowing search for safety in the constantly shifting battle of explosions, gunfire and armed fighters looting shops and homes. Many have been huddling in their homes for days. Food and fuel are leaping in price and harder to find, electricity and internet are cut off in much of the country, and hospitals are near collapse.
Those who can afford it were making the 15-hour drive to the Egyptian border or to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. Those without means to get abroad streamed out to relatively calmer provinces along the Nile, north and south of Khartoum.
Also Read: Sudan conflict: 91 including Bangladeshis evacuated
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a “catastrophic conflagration” that could engulf the whole region. He urged the 15 members of the Security Council to “exert maximum leverage” on both sides in order to “pull Sudan back from the edge of the abyss.”
More than 420 people, including at least 291 civilians, have been killed and over 3,700 wounded since the fighting began. The military has appeared to have the upper hand in Khartoum but the RSF still controls many districts in the capital and Omdurman, and has several large strongholds around the country.
Meanwhile, airlifts of foreigners continued.
Britain said Tuesday that it will run evacuation flights for U.K. nationals from an airfield outside Khartoum. However, those trying to get on a flight will have to make their own way to the airfield, said British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
The situation is “dangerous, volatile and unpredictable,” Cleverly told Sky News. “We cannot predict how the situation on the ground will develop."
Officials have said there are as many as 4,000 British citizens in Sudan, 2,000 of whom have registered for potential evacuation. The Foreign Office said priority would be given to families with children, the sick and the elderly.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that France has evacuated 538 people, including 209 French nationals. The large-scale French rescue operation and the inclusion of citizens from three dozen other countries stood in contrast to limited evacuation efforts by the U.S. and Britain.
The British government, which evacuated its diplomats from Sudan over the weekend, has come under growing criticism for its failure to airlift civilians, as some European countries have done.
The U.S. said Monday that it has begun facilitating the departure of private U.S. citizens after swooping in to extract diplomats on Sunday. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. has placed intelligence and reconnaissance assets over the evacuation route from Khartoum to Port Sudan but does not have any U.S. troops on the ground.
Germany said one of its rescue planes flew another mission early Tuesday, bringing the total of people evacuated to nearly 500.
Despite the pullout, U.S. and European officials insisted they were still engaged in trying to secure an end to the fighting. But so far the conflict has shown how little leverage they have with Burhan and Dagalo who appear determined to fight to the end.
The U.S. and EU have been dealing with the generals for years, trying to push them into ceding power to a democratic, civilian government. A pro-democracy uprising led to the 2019 ouster of former strongman Omar al-Bashir. But in 2021, Burhan and Dagalo joined forces to seize power in a coup.
Biden says US embassy evacuation in Sudan has been completed
American forces carried out a precarious evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel in Sudan, President Joe Biden said late Saturday, calling for the end to “unconscionable” violence there as two rival leaders battled for power in the African country.
Biden thanked the U.S. troops who carried out the mission to extract American staffers in Sudan. With the last American embassy worker out, Washington shuttered the U.S. mission in Khartoum indefinitely.
The U.S. said it had no current plans for a government-coordinated evacuation of an estimated 16,000 other Americans remaining in Sudan, calling the situation too dangerous.
Biden said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist those remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”
The roughly 70 American staffers were airlifted from a landing zone at the embassy to an undisclosed location in Ethiopia, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the mission. U.S. troops carried out the operation as fighting between two armed Sudanese commanders —which has killed more than 400, put the nation at risk of collapse and could have consequences far beyond its borders—moved into a second week.
“I am proud of the extraordinary commitment of our Embassy staff, who performed their duties with courage and professionalism and embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan,” Biden said in a statement. “I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety.”
Biden ordered American troops to evacuate embassy personnel after receiving a recommendation earlier Saturday from his national security team with no end in sight to the fighting.
“This tragic violence in Sudan has already cost the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. It’s unconscionable and it must stop,” Biden said. “The belligerent parties must implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and respect the will of the people of Sudan.”
The State Department has suspended operations at the embassy due to the dire security situation. It was not clear when the embassy might resume functioning.
“The widespread fighting has caused significant numbers of civilian deaths and injuries and damage to essential infrastructure and posed an unacceptable risk to our Embassy personnel,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The fighting erupted April 15 between two factions whose leaders are vying for control over the country. The violence has included an unprovoked attack on an American diplomatic convoy and numerous incidents in which foreign diplomats and aid workers were killed, injured or assaulted.
An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered with the embassy as being in Sudan.
Biden said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist those remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”
The embassy issued an alert earlier Saturday cautioning that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”
Fighting in Sudan between forces loyal to two top generals has put that nation at risk of collapse and could have consequences far beyond its borders.
The fighting, which began as Sudan attempted to transition to democracy, already has left millions trapped in urban areas, sheltering from gunfire, explosions and looters.
Army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan said Saturday he would facilitate the evacuation of American, British, Chinese and French citizens and diplomats from Sudan after speaking with the leaders of several countries that had requested help. The rival Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, in a Twitter posting said it cooperated with U.S. forces.
The U.S. evacuation planning got underway in earnest on Monday after the embassy convoy was attacked in Khartoum. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that U.S. troops were being moved to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti ahead of a possible evacuation.
Saudi Arabia announced the successful repatriation of some of its citizens on Saturday, sharing footage of Saudi nationals and other foreigners welcomed with chocolate and flowers as they stepped off an apparent evacuation ship at the Saudi port of Jeddah.
Embassy evacuations conducted by the U.S. military are relatively rare and usually take place only under extreme conditions.
When it orders an embassy to draw down staff or suspend operations, the State Department prefers to have its personnel leave on commercial transportation if that is an option. When the embassy in Kyiv temporarily closed just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, staffers used commercial transport to leave.
However, in several other recent cases, notably in Afghanistan in 2021, conditions made commercial departures impossible or extremely hazardous. U.S. troops accompanied personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, in an overland convoy to Tunisia when they evacuated in 2014.
Sudan floods continue to tear up homes; 66 people killed
Flash floods triggered by heavy rains continued to tear up homes across Sudan, an official said Tuesday, with the death toll rising to 66 since the start of the rainy season.
Earlier this week, authorities had said that at least 50 people were killed since the rains started in June. Brig. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rahim, spokesman for Sudan’s National Council for Civil Defense, said Tuesday that at least 28 people were reported injured during the same period.
Some 24,000 homes and two dozen government buildings have been badly damaged or completely destroyed, he said.
Sudan has been without a functioning government since an October military coup derailed its short-lived democratic transition following the 2019 removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
Overall, around 136,000 people have been impacted by heavy rainfall and floods in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to the government-run Humanitarian Aid Commission.
Read: 357 killed, over 400 injured as monsoon rains continue to batter Pakistan
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the floods also inundated 238 health facilities. The western Darfur region and the provinces of Nile River, White Nile, West Kordofan and South Kordofan were among the hardest hit, it said.
Footage circulated online over the past weeks showing flood waters sweeping through streets and people struggling to save their belongings.
Sudan’s rainy season usually starts in June and lasts until the end of September, with floods peaking in August and September. More than 80 people were killed last year in flood-related incidents during the rainy season.
In 2020, authorities declared Sudan a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country after flooding and heavy rains killed around 100 people and inundated over 100,000 houses.
Sudan accuses Chad of cross-border attack it says killed 18
Sudan has accused neighboring Chad of a cross-border attack earlier this week that a top commander says killed at least 18 nomads in Sudan's western Darfur region.
According to Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, armed Chadian assailants crossed into West Darfur province and attacked a group of nomads staying in an open area near the border towns of Beir Saliba and Ardeiba last Thursday.
Apart from those killed, several nomads were also wounded in the attack and their livestock was looted and taken to Chad, the council said Friday.
There was no immediate comment from Chad on the accusations.
A Sudanese outlet, Darfur 24 news, reported a minor clash Friday between Chadian and Sudanese forces in the area, saying three Sudanese troops were wounded.
Senior Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy head of the sovereign council, had travelled to Chad before the attack for a previously scheduled meeting Thursday with Chad’s acting president and head of the country’s ruling transitional military council, Mahamat Idriss Deby.
Read: Sudan says 31 killed in tribal clashes in Blue Nile province
He then returned to Darfur where he has resided for weeks to help defuse tribal tensions and violence that has rocked the troubled region in recent months.
Dagalo attended the funerals of the slain nomads on Friday and urged tribal leaders and residents in West Darfur for restraint. On Saturday, he met with a Sudanese-Chadian joint committee and held talks with local officials and tribal leaders to prevent a further escalation.
Sudan has called on Chad to find the attackers and return the looted livestock.
Sudan says 31 killed in tribal clashes in Blue Nile province
At least 31 people were killed in tribal clashes in a Sudanese southern province, authorities said, the latest bloodshed in a country in turmoil since an October military coup.
The fighting between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups in the Blue Nile province grew out of the killing of a farmer earlier this week, according to a statement from the local government late Friday.
The clashes also left at least 39 people injured and damaged some 16 shops shops in the town of Roseires, it said.
The local government deployed the military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — or RSF — to bring stability to the region.
Authorities also imposed a nightly curfew and banned gatherings in the area where the clashes took place.
Read: Sudan's top general lifts state of emergency from coup
The violence came amid chaos in Sudan since the military’s took over in October, removing a transitional government that ruled the country since a popular uprising forced the overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
The coup upended the country’s transition to democracy and raised questions about military leaders’ ability to bring security to Sudan’s far-reaching areas. In April, tribal clashes killed over 200 people in war-wrecked Darfur.
Sudan's top general lifts state of emergency from coup
Sudan’s leading general lifted a state of emergency Sunday that was imposed in the country following the October coup he led.
The decision by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, came hours after the Security and Defense Council, Sudan’s highest body that decides on security matters, recommended an end to the state of emergency and the release of all detainees.
Also read: Aid group says tribal violence kills 8 in Sudan’s Darfur
The recommendations are meant to facilitate dialogue between the military and the pro-democracy movement, the defense minister, Maj. Gen. Yassin Ibrahim Yassin, said in a video statement. They come as the country faces protests against military rule and an unknown number of activists and former officials remain in detention.
Earlier Sunday, the U.N. envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, called for the country’s leaders to lift the state of emergency. He decried the killing of two people in a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters who once again took to the streets of the capital to denounce the Oct. 25 coup.
“Once again: It is time for the violence to stop,” said Perthes on Twitter.
Hundreds of people marched Saturday in Khartoum, where security forces violently dispersed the crowds and chased them in the streets, according to activists. The two were killed during protests in Khartoum’s Kalakla neighborhood. One was shot by security forces and the other suffocated after inhaling tear gas, said the Sudan Doctors Committee, which is part of the pro-democracy movement.
Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the military takeover upended its short-lived transition to democracy after three decades of repressive rule by former strongman Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir and his Islamist-backed government were removed by the military in a popular uprising in April 2019.
Saturday’s protests were part of relentless demonstrations in the past seven months calling for the military to hand over power to civilians. At least 98 people have been killed and over 4,300 wounded in the government crackdown on anti-coup protests since October, according to the medical group. Hundreds of activists and officials in the disposed government were also detained following the coup, many were later released under pressure from the U.N. and other western governments.
The protesters demand the removal of the military from power. The generals, however, have said they will only hand over power to an elected administration. They say elections will take place in July 2023 as planned in a constitutional document governing the transition period.
Also read:UN envoy: Sudan could face economic and security collapse
The U.N., the African Union and the eight-nation east African regional group called the Intergovernmental Authority in Development have been leading concerted efforts to bridge the gap between the two sides and find a way out of the impasse.
Meanwhile, the trial of four activists accused of killing a senior police officer during a protest earlier this year began Sunday amid tight security outside the Judicial and Legal Science Institute in Khartoum. Dozens of protesters gathered in the area in a show of support for the defendants.
The four were detained in raids after police Col. Ali Hamad was stabbed to death as security forces dispersed protesters on Jan. 13. Their defense lawyers deny the allegations.
The court’s judges in Sunday’s proceedings ordered the defendants be medically examined after their lawyers claimed they were tortured and mistreated in police detention. The trial resumes June 12.
Aid group says tribal violence kills 8 in Sudan’s Darfur
Tribal violence between Arabs and non-Arabs in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region killed at least 8 people including a woman and a child, an aid worker and activists said Saturday.
The clashes erupted Thursday with the killing of two people by an unknown assailant around the Kreinik area of West Darfur province, said Adam Regal, the spokesman for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur charity.
The following day, militias known as janjaweed attacked a camp for displaced people just to the south of Kreinik, burning down dozens of houses and forcing large numbers of people to flee.
Also read: UN envoy: Sudan could face economic and security collapse
The violence, which lasted till late Friday, also wounded 16 others, including three in critical condition, he said.
Sudan’s Darfur region has seen bouts of deadly clashes between rival tribes in recent months as the country remains mired in a wider crisis following last year’s coup, when top generals overthrew a civilian-led government.
In December, tribal clashes in Kreinik killed 88 people. Most recently, at least 45 people were killed in intercommunal violence in South Darfur province.
Also read: Anti-coup protests in Sudan amid turmoil after PM resigns
The yearslong Darfur conflict broke out when rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in the capital, Khartoum.
The government of now-deposed strongman Omar al-Bashir responded with a campaign of aerial bombings and raids by the janjaweed, which have been accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes in Darfur over the years.
UN envoy: Sudan could face economic and security collapse
The U.N. envoy for Sudan warned Monday the east African nation is heading for “an economic and security collapse” unless it addresses the political paralysis following October’s military coup and moves toward resuming a civilian-led transition.
Volker Perthes told the U.N. Security Council that the military’s “violent repression” of protests against the coup is continuing and the absence of a political agreement on returning to a transitional path has already led to a deteriorating economic, humanitarian and security situation in the country.
The coup upended Sudan’s democratic transition after a popular uprising forced the military to remove autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
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Near-daily street protests demanding a return to civilian rule have been met by a crackdown on protesters that has killed 80 people, mostly young men, and injured over 2,600 others, according to a Sudanese medical group. Western governments and world financial institutions suspended their assistance to Sudan in order to pressure the generals to return to civilian-led government.
Perthes said the United Nations, the African Union and the eight-nation east African regional group called the Intergovernmental Authority in Development have agreed to join efforts to facilitate Sudanese-led political talks.
The aim, he said, is a “return to constitutional order and (a) transitional path, with an empowered civilian-led government to steer the country through the transitional period and address the critical priorities.”
To give these talks a chance of succeeding, he said, “favorable conditions must be created” including an end to violence, ensuring the right to demonstrate peacefully, the release of political detainees, and “a firm commitment” to phase out the military’s current state of emergency in the country.
He said women demonstrators have been subjected to violence and intimidation by members of the security forces and 16 women have reportedly been raped during protests in the capital of Khartoum as of March 22, though the figure could be higher due to under-reporting.
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Perthes said that over the last two weeks, the three organizations have been working on a common approach and consulting key Sudanese parties. He said many of them “have emphasized the urgency of the situation and the need for a speedy yet sound resolution” a view he shares.
“We expect to start an intensive phase of talks in the next couple of weeks, fully recognizing that this will be during the (Muslim) holy month of Ramadan,” Perthes said. “We anticipate that the stakeholders will participate in the month’s spirit of peace and forgiveness.”
The U.N. envoy said that “the stakes are high” and the aspirations of the Sudanese people “for a prosperous, civilian-led, democratic future are at risk.”
“Unless the current trajectory is corrected, the country will head towards an economic and security collapse, and significant humanitarian suffering,” he said.
There have been disturbing reports of increased tensions among Sudan's different security forces, Perthes added. This has sparked concerns in some quarters “that if a political solution is not found, Sudan could descend into conflict and divisions as seen in Libya, Yemen or elsewhere, in a region already beset by instability,” he said.
Perthes also warned that the combination of conflict, economic crisis and poor harvests “will likely double the number of people facing acute hunger in Sudan to 18 million people by September 2022.”
In the absence of a political solution, he said, crime and lawlessness are rising and intercommunal conflicts in the vast western Darfur region have intensified, with farmers forced off their land by violent attacks, villages burned, and homes looted.