Sudan’s rival armed forces have been fighting across the capital as escalating attacks and growing lawlessness add to the misery of civilians already struggling with limited water, food and medicine.
Artillery fire and airstrikes were reported Tuesday with residents in southern and eastern Khartoum and northern Bahri, a town north of the capital, reporting artillery and small arms fire.
Looters – some of whom are believed to belong to Khartoum’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group – have looted neighborhoods in the city, stolen cars, broken into safes and occupied people’s homes.
“Our neighborhood has become a war zone. Violent clashes and strikes are everywhere. … We are afraid of dying, but we are also afraid of leaving our house and being broken into,” said 45-year-old Jawahir Mohamed.
Aid groups are struggling to provide assistance to civilians, who are also facing electricity shortages and dwindling supplies in shops and pharmacies. Nearby resistance committees have organized supplies of food and medicine, but are struggling to deliver them as fighting intensified this week.
The Sudanese army and RSF fought overnight in the streets of Omdurman, a town across the Nile from Khartoum, near the Army base of the Engineers Corps. The army was able to hold its positions around the base, but failed to push back the RSF, which controls most of the rest of the city.
Eight weeks of fighting have pitted army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as “Hemedti”, who commands the RSF.
Hundreds of civilians caught in the clashes have been killed, 400,000 have been driven across the border and more than 1.2 million have fled the capital and other cities.
Desperate residents in besieged urban areas are losing patience with the fighters. In northern Khartoum, witnesses said dozens of protesters gathered in the streets chanting, “Burhan is a murderer! Hemedti is a murderer!”
A besieged island
In Khartoum’s city center — at the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile — the island of Tuti is under “full siege” by RSF forces, resident Mohammed Youssef said.
For more than a week, the paramilitaries have blocked the only bridge to the island and prevented residents from getting to other parts of the capital by boat.
“We can’t move anyone who is sick to hospitals outside the island,” Youssef said, adding that if the fighting continues, “the stores will run out of food.”
Empty shelves in shops and pharmacies “herald a humanitarian catastrophe,” according to a pro-democracy advocacy group that called on the RSF “to open safe corridors and respect the principles of humanitarian law.”
Both sides have repeatedly pledged to comply with international law, declare a humanitarian ceasefire and accuse the other side of violating it.
“Dozens” of murders, arrests, possible disappearances, attacks on hospitals, sexual assaults and other forms of serious abuses against children committed by parties to the conflict have been documented, the UN mission in Sudan said Monday.
‘Major humanitarian crisis’
The United States last week imposed sanctions on the two warring generals, blaming both for the “appalling bloodshed” after a US-Saudi Arabia-brokered ceasefire collapsed.
Al-Burhan said on Tuesday he received a call from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan discussing terms for renewed ceasefire talks.
The army chief “emphasized the need for [RSF] rebels to evacuate hospitals, service centers and civilian homes and to open humanitarian aid corridors” in order for negotiations to succeed, a statement from the army said.
Hemedti said he also received a call from the top Saudi diplomat days earlier, reiterating the RSF’s “support” for negotiations and “commitment” to ensuring protection of civilians and humanitarian aid.
Previous ceasefires have brought a brief lull to the fighting, but there is no reprieve for the people of Khartoum.
There has also been heavy fighting in the western region of Darfur, where the RSF originated and has a power base.
In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, medics said they did not even have access to basic medication and equipment, including painkillers, antiseptics and antibiotics.
According to Pierre Kremer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, citizens are facing “a massive humanitarian crisis that will only get worse with the collapse of the economy”.