Sudan: Evacuees stream out of Khartoum as fighting shakes new three-day truce

The United States is continuing to press to extend the ceasefire in Sudan, including by co-ordinating with regional and international partners to assist in forming a committee to oversee negotiations, the US state department said on Tuesday.

Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters the US wants to help the warring factions identify a path to a sustainable cessation of hostilities through its engagements with Sudan’s military and civilian leaders.

Mr Patel added the state department in an advisory indicated to private American citizens in Sudan that if they can make it to Port Sudan and get to Jeddah via ferry, consular officers in Jeddah are available to assist them.

So far, a series of short ceasefires in the past week have either failed outright or brought only intermittent lulls in the fighting that has raged between the forces of the country’s two top generals since April 15th.

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The lulls have been enough for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of foreigners by air and land, which continued on Tuesday. But they have not been enough to bring relief to millions of Sudanese caught in the crossfire, struggling to find food, shelter and medical care as explosions and gunfire rip through their neighbourhoods.

Calls for negotiations to end the crisis have been ignored, and for many Sudanese, the departure of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners and the closure of embassies is a terrifying sign that international powers expect the mayhem to worsen.

Thousands of Sudanese have been fleeing Khartoum and the neighbouring city of Omdurman, fearing that the rival camps will escalate their all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed.

In Khartoum, bus stations were packed on Tuesday morning with people who had spent the night there in the hope of getting on a departing bus.

Drivers increased prices, sometimes tenfold, for routes to the border crossing with Egypt or the eastern Red Sea city of Port Sudan.

Fuel prices have rocketed, to $67 a gallon from $4.20, and prices for food and water have doubled in many cases, the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

Late on Monday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken announced that he had helped broker a new 72-hour ceasefire. The truce was to last until late on Thursday night, extending a nominal three-day truce over the weekend for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The Sudanese military, commanded by Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group led by Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, said on Tuesday they would observe the ceasefire. In separate announcements, they said Saudi Arabia played a role in the negotiations.

“This ceasefire aims to establish humanitarian corridors, allowing citizens and residents to access essential resources, healthcare, and safe zones, while also evacuating diplomatic missions,” the RSF said in a statement.

The army announcement used similar language, adding that it will abide by the truce “on the condition that the rebels commit to stopping all hostilities”.

But fighting continued, including in Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from Khartoum.

Omdurman resident Amin Ishaq said there were clashes early on Tuesday around the state television headquarters and around military bases just outside Omdurman. “They stop only when they run out of ammunition,” he said.

“Sounds of gunfire, explosions and flying warplanes are still heard across Khartoum,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, a senior figure in the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a group that monitors casualties. “They don’t respect ceasefires.”

Clashes escalated in West Darfur province on Tuesday, residents said. Armed groups, wearing RSF uniforms, attacked serval areas in Genena, the provincial capital, burning and looting properties and camps for displaced people.

“Fierce battles are raging all over the city,” said a doctor in Genena, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

“All eyes are on Khartoum but the situation here is unimaginable.”

In Genena’s centre, women and children were fleeing homes and the city’s main hospital has not functioned for days, with unknown numbers of dead and wounded, she said.

More fighters on motorcycles and horses have entered the city from neighbouring areas to join the battles, with bodies lying in the streets, according to Darfur 24, an online news outlet focusing on covering the war-wrecked region.

Sudan’s western Darfur region is where the RSF has its roots, born from the Janjaweed militias accused of widespread atrocities in putting down a rebellion in the early 2000s.

More than 420 people, including at least 291 civilians, have been killed and over 3,700 wounded since the fighting began. Electricity and the internet are cut off in much of the country, and hospitals are near collapse.

Even before April 15th, one-third of Sudan’s population of 46 million relied on humanitarian assistance. Most of those providing aid have suspended operations.

Those who are able have made their way to Egyptian border, Port Sudan or relatively calmer provinces along the Nile but the full scale of displacement has been difficult to measure.

At least 20,000 people have fled from Khartoum to the city of Wad Medani, some 160km to the south, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Some 20,000 Sudanese have fled to Chad and around 4,000 South Sudan refugees living in Sudan have returned home, said Olga Sarrado, spokesperson of the UN refugee agency UNHCR. The agency is gearing up for tens of thousands more to flee to neighbouring countries.

“The fighting looks set to trigger further displacement both within and outside the country,” she said.

[ Sudan: 72 Irish citizens evacuated, Tánaiste confirms ]

The evacuation of Irish citizens from Sudan was continuing sporadically on the aircraft of EU partners on Monday night. About 50 Irish citizens had been evacuated on French and Spanish aircraft by Monday morning with the pace of evacuations slowing later in the day due to logistical issues, sources said.

On Monday evening, the German and Swedish air forces were taking over the evacuation of Irish citizens along with their own people. Multiple flights were scheduled for Monday night and officials said seats for Irish citizens were being secured on these as they arose.

However, they said it would not be possible to obtain an accurate picture of the number of Irish evacuated before Tuesday morning, due to the “extremely fluid situation” on the ground.

More than 100 Irish people are believed to remain in Sudan, including aid workers, business people and returned immigrants who obtained citizenship while living here. However, the figure requiring evacuation may be much higher when children and other dependents are taken into account.

Efforts to remain in contact with citizens and to gather accurate data are being severely hampered by continuing internet outages in the country. – AP/Reuters