Sudan’s warring military factions have agreed on a new and longer seven-day ceasefire from Thursday.
This is the situation on Wednesday, May 3, 2023:
To fight
- Sudan’s warring military factions have agreed on a new and longer seven-day ceasefire from Thursday, neighbor and mediator South Sudan said.
- South Sudan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the mediation supported by President Salva Kiir led to both sides agreeing a week-long ceasefire and appointing envoys for peace talks.
- Airstrikes and shootings in the capital of Khartoum undermined their last supposed truce. Witnesses reported renewed airstrikes and anti-aircraft fire in the capital on Tuesday.
- Outside Khartoum, lawlessness has engulfed the Darfur region, from which more than 70 percent of the 330,000 people displaced by fighting inside Sudan have fled.
- According to local reports, in el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, there has been a return to “a semblance of normalcy as markets reopen and residents cautiously lead their lives”.
Humanitarian situation
- Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, or Doctors Without Borders) said it had delivered aid to Khartoum from Port Sudan, a journey of about 800 km (500 miles) by road.
- The Sudanese health ministry said on Tuesday that 550 people have been killed and 4,926 injured in the fighting so far.
- A Sudanese doctor, Howida Elhassan, posted a video on social media of medical staff struggling with a spate of injured civilians at a hospital in Khartoum’s East Nile district.
- “On days when there is fighting in the area, we receive between 30 and 40 wounded,” in addition to the regular cases, Elhassan said. “Other medical personnel cannot reach us because the roads are no longer safe. We are understaffed and have no equipment.”
Diplomacy and evacuation
- A wider disaster could be in the works as Sudan’s impoverished neighbors grapple with an influx of people fleeing the country.
- “The whole region could be affected,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in an interview with a Japanese newspaper on Tuesday.
- Before the announcement by South Sudan, UN mission chief Volker Perthes said talks were underway with Saudi and US mediators with the rival generals to negotiate a ceasefire.
- The Indian embassy in Khartoum has been stormed and looted, the Sudanese military said in a statement, citing a report by the ambassador.