KHARTOUM, Sudan
The Sudanese army on Thursday pounded paramilitaries in the capital Khartoum with air strikes while deadly fighting flared in Darfur as the conflict entered a 13th day despite a US-brokered ceasefire.
Late Wednesday, the army said
it had agreed to talks in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan, on
extending the three-day truce which expires on Friday at the initiative of the
East African regional bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad).
There have been multiple truce
efforts since fighting broke out on April 15 between Sudan's regular army led
by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
(RSF) commanded by his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. All have
failed.
The fighting has continued
despite the US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday, with warplanes
patrolling the skies over the capital's northern suburbs as fighters on the
ground have exchanged artillery and heavy machine gun fire, witnesses said.
Burhan agreed on Wednesday to
the Igad proposal for talks on extending the truce by a further 72 hours, the
army added.
At least 512 people have been
killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting, according to health ministry figures,
although the real death toll is likely to be much higher.
Beyond the capital, fighting
has flared in the provinces, particularly in the war-torn western region of
Darfur.
Witnesses said clashes between
the army and the RSF raged for a second straight day in the West Darfur capital
Geneina, adding that civilians were seen fleeing to the nearby border with
Chad.
On Wednesday, the UN humanitarian agency had reported killings, looting and arson in Geneina.
"An estimated 50,000
acutely malnourished children have had nutrition support disrupted due to the
fighting," it added in a statement.
The heavy fighting has trapped
many civilians in their homes, where they have endured severe shortages of
food, water and electricity. Communications have been sporadically
disrupted.
The UN has warned that as many
as 270,000 people could flee into Sudan's poorer neighbours South Sudan and
Chad.
Other Sudanese have sought
refuge in Egypt to the north and Ethiopia to the east, but both entail long and
potentially dangerous journeys overland.
The UN said it had received
reports of tens of thousands of people arriving in the Central African
Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.
Cambridge University academic
Sharath Srinivasan warned that the mass movement of people across Sudan's
borders threatened to destabilise already fragile regimes in neighbouring
countries.
"If the armed
confrontation between these two forces protracts or worse draws in other armed
rebel groups across the country, this could quickly become one of the worst
humanitarian crises in the region and risk spilling over," he told US news
outlet Politico.
Foreign governments have taken
advantage of the fragile truce to organise road convoys, aircraft and ships to
get thousands of their citizens out, but some have warned their evacuation
efforts are dependent on the lull in fighting holding.
“China has deployed warships
on Thursday to evacuate its citizens,” the defence ministry said.
As lawlessness has gripped
Sudan, there have been several jailbreaks, including from the high security
Kober prison where top aides of ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir were held.
Among those who have escaped
is Ahmed Haroun, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and
crimes against humanity for his role in the Darfur conflict that erupted
two decades ago.
Haroun's escape sparked fears
of the involvement of Bashir loyalists in the ongoing fighting.
The army said the ousted
dictator was not among those who escaped but had been moved to a military
hospital before the fighting erupted.
Daglo's RSF emerged from the
Janjaweed militia, accused of carrying out atrocities against civilians during
Bashir's brutal suppression of ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the
mid-2000s.
Bashir was toppled by the military
in a palace coup in April 2019 following civilian mass protests that raised
hopes for a transition to democracy.
The two generals had together
seized power in a 2021 coup, but later fell out, most recently over the planned
integration of the RSF into the regular army.
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