Heavy Fighting in Sudan's Capital as Food Aid Needs Grow
Heavy air strikes
pounded southern areas of Sudan's capital on Thursday as clashes flared near a
military camp, witnesses said, in fighting that has displaced nearly 1 million
people and left residents of Khartoum struggling to survive.
Airstrikes by the army
targeting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were heard across several
residential neighborhoods in southern Khartoum, including near the Taiba camp,
while a police reserve force aligned with the army battled the RSF on the
ground, the witnesses said.
The army has mainly
used air power and heavy artillery as it tries to drive back the RSF, which
spread out across large areas of Khartoum and its adjoining cities of Bahri and
Omdurman across the Nile after fighting erupted on April 15.
"The bombardment
and the clashes don't stop and there's no way to flee from our homes. All our
money is gone," said Salah el-Din Othman, a 35-year-old resident of
Khartoum.
"Even if we leave
our houses again we're afraid that gangs will loot everything in the house … we
are living a nightmare of fear and poverty."
Violence has also
flared in Darfur in western Sudan and in North Kordofan State, and other parts
of the country, but the power struggle has been focused on the capital.
Both army chief Abdel
Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, are
thought to have remained in Khartoum throughout the fighting.
On Wednesday the army
released a video showing Burhan dressed in army fatigues greeting troops at
what appeared to be the army headquarters in central Khartoum.
Aid supplies looted
According to latest
estimates, more than 840,000 people have been displaced within Sudan and over
220,000 have fled to neighboring countries.
The U.N. World Food Program
said it was ramping up its operations across at least six states in Sudan to
assist 4.9 million vulnerable people, as well as assisting those fleeing to
Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
"The fighting in
Sudan is devastating lives and livelihoods and forcing people to flee their
homes with nothing but the clothes they are wearing," WFP East Africa
director Michael Dunford said in a statement.
The U.N. said on
Wednesday that more than half of Sudan's 46 million population needed
humanitarian assistance and protection, launching a $3 billion aid appeal. It
also said it had received reports of "horrific gender-based violence"
in Sudan.
The aid effort has been
hampered by the deaths of some humanitarian workers early in the conflict and
repeated cases of looting.
Medical aid agency MSF
said that on Tuesday armed men had broken into its warehouse in Khartoum and
taken two cars filled with supplies.
Burhan and Hemedti took
the top positions on Sudan's ruling council following the 2019 overthrow of
strongman Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising. They staged a coup two years
later as a deadline to hand power to civilians approached and they began to
mobilize their respective forces.
The latest conflict
broke out after disputes over plans for the RSF to join the army and over the
future chain of command under an internationally backed deal for a political
transition towards civilian rule.
Talks mediated by the
United States and Saudi Arabia in Jeddah have so far failed to secure a
ceasefire.
VOA
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