Sudanese forces clash in Khartoum after talks break down
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[June 02, 2023]
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's warring parties clashed in
the capital overnight and into Friday morning after talks aimed at
maintaining a ceasefire and alleviating a humanitarian crisis collapsed,
prompting the U.S. to issue sanctions.
Residents of Khartoum and adjoining Omdurman said the army had resumed
air strikes and was using more artillery as the clashes continued, but
with no sign that its paramilitary enemy was retreating from city
streets and homes it has occupied.
"We are suffering so much from this war. Since this morning there have
been sounds of violence. We're living in terror. It is a real
nightmare," said Shehab al-Din Abdalrahman, 31, in a southern district
of the capital.
Seven weeks of warfare between the army and Rapid Support Forces have
smashed up parts of central Khartoum, threatened to destabilise the
wider region, displaced 1.2 million people inside Sudan and sent another
400,000 into neighbouring states.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia on Thursday suspended truce talks after a
ceasefire they had mediated fell apart, accusing the sides of occupying
homes, businesses and hospitals, carrying out air strikes and attacks
and executing banned military movements.
Washington imposed sanctions on businesses belonging to the army and RSF
and threatened further action "if the parties continue to destroy their
country", according to a senior U.S. official.
Sudan's ambassador to Washington, Mohamed Abdallah Idris, said the
government and army remained fully committed to the truce pact and any
penalties should be "imposed on the party that did not abide by what it
signed" - a reference to the RSF.
The two sides have blamed each other for truce violations.
Since the overthrow of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in 2019 Sudan's
government has been headed by a sovereign council under army chief
Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan with the RSF head Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as
Hemedti, as his deputy.
After they went to war on April 15 Burhan said he had dismissed Hemdti
from the council, and government departments have remained aligned with
the army.
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Smoke rises above buildings after an
aerial bombardment, during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 1, 2023.
REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
AID SUPPLIES LOOTED
Outside Khartoum, the worst fighting has been in the Darfur region,
where a civil war has simmered since 2003, killing around 300,000
people.
More than 100,000 people have fled militia attacks in West Darfur to
neighbouring Chad since the latest fighting began, and the numbers
could double in the next three months, the U.N. refugee agency said
on Thursday.
Truce efforts had been aimed at delivering humanitarian aid to
civilians caught in a war that has brought deadly shellfire and
shooting, disabled power and water networks, ruined hospitals and
hampered food supplies in an already hungry nation.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme and its refugee agency UNHCR said
continued looting was disrupting their efforts to help Sudanese,
calling on all parties to respect humanitarian work.
The WFP said it had recorded losses of more than $60 million since
the fighting began. The UNHCR said two of its offices in Khartoum
were pillaged and its warehouse in El Obeid was targeted on
Thursday.
With the ceasefire talks off, Khartoum residents are bracing for
further problems.
"Since yesterday one telecom network has been down. Today another
one is down. The power is out but the water has come back. It's like
they're alternating forms of torture," said Omer Ibrahim, who lives
in a district of Omdurman that has seen little fighting.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo and Khalid Abdelaziz in Dubai;
editing by Angus McDowall and Mark Heinrich)
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