despite the truce negotiated by Washington and Riyadh, the fighting continues – RT in French

Fighting continues in Khartoum despite the official entry into force of a one-week truce between the army and the paramilitaries, supposed to allow civilians and humanitarian aid to pass into Sudan.

Sporadic artillery fire echoes through Khartoum. Just after the truce began at 7:45 p.m. (GMT) on May 22, residents were already reporting fighting and airstrikes.

Since April 15, the war between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has claimed a thousand lives and more than a million displaced persons and refugees.

Both sides have announced that they want to respect this ceasefire, but on May 22, the UN had already denounced “fighting and troop movements while both sides have pledged not to seek to take the military advantage before the entry into force of the truce”.

“Beyond the official announcements, Sudan is still being bombed and millions of civilians are in danger,” was also alarmed Karl Schembri, of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). He denounced on Twitter “more than a month of broken promises”, while nearly a dozen truces have already failed in Sudan.

For the sixth consecutive week, the five million inhabitants of Khartoum begin their day under an overwhelming heat, for the majority deprived of water, electricity and telecommunications.

The American and Saudi mediators had announced that they had obtained, after two weeks of negotiations, a one-week truce. The ceasefire would make it possible to restart services and hospitals and to replenish humanitarian stocks and markets looted or bombed in a country where, according to the UN, 25 of the 45 million inhabitants need humanitarian aid. .

“We are all hungry”

“We are all hungry, the children, the old, everyone is suffering from the war. We have no more water,” Souad al-Fateh, a resident of Khartoum, told AFP. Early on May 23, the doctors’ union announced the closure of a new hospital in the greater suburbs of the capital. Caught in the crossfire, its staff was forced to stop working.

On the one hand, “several times, FSR fighters attacked patients and medical staff by shooting in the corridors of the hospital”, reports the union. On the other, high-ranking members of the regular army lead “a campaign of lies and rumours” against doctors, victims of “threats against their person”.

Doctors continue to warn of the dramatic fate of hospitals: in Khartoum, as in the Darfur region (west), the region of the country most devastated by the fighting with the capital, they are almost all out of use. Those which have not been bombed have no more stocks or are occupied by belligerents.

Ceasefire monitoring mechanism

Humanitarians are calling for safe corridors. This time, assure Riyadh and Washington, there will be “a ceasefire monitoring mechanism” bringing together representatives of both sides as well as the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The mediators have so far not commented on the implementation of the truce and the possible violations. Sanctions are the key for the experts faced with two generals convinced of being able to win militarily and therefore more ready for a long war than for concessions at the negotiating table.

If the army controls the air, it has few men in the center of the capital, while the RSF, they occupy the ground in Khartoum. Many residents accuse them of looting their homes or setting up headquarters there. If the conflict continues, warns the UN, a million additional Sudanese could flee to neighboring countries, which fear a contagion of violence.