UN calls for immediate action to stop civilian killings in Darfur
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According to the UN, a record 25 million people – more than half of Sudan's population – require help and safety.
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Smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, Sudan, on Friday, April 21, 2023. (AP)
According to witnesses, artillery fire, airstrikes, and gun fights shook Sudan's capital on Saturday, after more than two months of combat between the rival generals. In the process, relief operations have stopped.
Fighting continued unabated in Khartoum, locals claimed, with whole families hiding in place and running out of essential supplies in the searing summer heat.
The UN reports almost 1.5 million people have fled the capital, and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project reported that over 2,000 people have died as a result of the power struggle between army head Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, since April 15.
As people vented their rage at the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rival paramilitaries' extensive seizure of private residences, demonstrations in support of the regular army were organized on Friday in greater Khartoum and in the White Nile state to its south, according to witnesses.
Witnesses on Friday reported increased street fighting and artillery exchanges in Khartoum, as well as "clashes between the army and the RSF" in the state of North Kordofan, hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the south.
Numerous residents told AFP that some districts no longer have running water and those in the city have not had electricity since Thursday.
The worst battle has raged in Darfur, where the UN warned of a conflict that has transformed and taken an "ethnic dimension".
In Nyala, South Darfur, some say they are caught in the crossfire, reporting battles, shelling, and artillery strikes.
Bodies scattered on the sides of roads
The UN has called for "immediate action" to stop the killing of civilians escaping El Geneina, West Darfur.
The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Office claimed witnesses provided "corroborating accounts" of militias targeting non-Arab Masalit males.
Many interviewed had witnessed "summary executions" and civilian targeting on the route from El Geneina to the border between June 15 and 16, in addition to describing decomposing bodies on the sides of the roads.
According to the Sudanese Doctors Union, more than two-thirds of the health facilities in the battlegrounds are out of service with few hospitals operating on critically low supplies and low power.
According to the think-tank the International Crisis Group (ICG), "The army is... loath to let aid into the capital, fearing that packages will end up in the RSF's hands" as has happened before, "allowing the paramilitary to hold out longer."
Due to the fact that both sides violated the previous 72-hour ceasefire, which concluded on Wednesday, diplomatic efforts to mediate an end to the fighting have come to a standstill.
The United States and Saudi Arabia mediated the ceasefire; the US said on Thursday it had suspended its efforts.
According to the International Organization for Migration, over 150,000 people have escaped to Chad. According to Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo, the country already had over 680,000 refugees and is in need of intense financial and technical support to uphold the "unprecedented migratory crisis."
The ICG warned that "a collapsed Sudan could create a haven for transnational militants... mercenaries and traffickers who could plague the country's neighborhood for years to come."
