Fighting rages in Khartoum, civilians say they have been forgotten
Heavy gunfire echoed around Khartoum again on Friday as civilians trapped in the Sudanese capital said the army and rival paramilitary forces were fighting on and ignoring their plight.
“It’s been four days without electricity and our situation is difficult... We are the victims of a war that we aren’t a part of. No one cares about the citizen,” said 48-year-old Othman Hassan from the southern outskirts of the city, Reuters reported.
Live footage on Al Jazeera showed smoke rising in an area right outside Khartoum’s presidential palace, and across the River Nile in the adjoining city of Bahri.
Despite multiple ceasefire declarations, the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) appeared to be battling each other for control of territory in the capital ahead of proposed talks.
So far, army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, have shown little public willingness to negotiate after more than two weeks of fighting.
The sudden collapse into warfare has killed hundreds, triggered a humanitarian disaster, sent an exodus of refugees to neighbouring states and risks dragging in outside powers, further destabilising an already restive region.
Across swathes of Khartoum, factories, banks and shops have been looted or damaged, power and water supplies have been failing and residents have reported steep price rises and shortages of basic goods.
Whole neighbourhoods have emptied out, leading people to fear for the houses they left behind.
The Sudanese Doctors Union said in total 17 hospitals had been damaged by fighting and 20 forcibly evacuated since the start of the violence. Sixty of the 88 hospitals in Khartoum are out of service, it said, with many of the rest only offering partial service.
“Sudan’s warring armies are showing reckless disregard for civilian lives by using inaccurate weapons in populated urban areas,” Human Rights Watch Sudan researcher Mohamed Osman said in a report.
The fighting stems from tensions between two rival factions, the army and RSF, which had shared power after a coup in 2021. They have accused each other of breaching a string of truces. Neither side made a statement on the fighting on Friday.
The U.N. pressed the warring sides to guarantee safe passage of aid after six trucks were looted.
U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said he hoped to have face-to-face meetings with both sides to secure guarantees from them for aid convoys.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that $13m to $14m worth of food destined to people in need in Sudan had been plundered so far.
About 100,000 people have fled Sudan with little food or water to neighbouring countries, the United Nations says.
The United Nations refugee agency called on governments to let fleeing civilians into their territory.