UN fears a mass exodus from Sudan, where fighting is raging

The United Nations warned on Monday that more than 800,000 people could flee the violent fighting that devastated Sudan, where shots and explosions once again shook the territory despite a new truce announced by the army and paramilitaries.

In the capital Khartoum, with five million inhabitants, “fighter planes fly over”, and in several neighborhoods explosions and shots are heard, witnesses told AFP.

Hundreds of people have been killed since a proxy war broke out on April 15 between army chief General Abdel Fatah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FAR), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The chaos engulfing the country has already led to the exodus of tens of thousands of Sudanese to neighboring Egypt, Chad and the Central African Republic.

But the United Nations refugee agency (Acnur) said that it was preparing “for the possibility that more than 800,000 people” flee the fighting to neighboring countries.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if the violence does not come to an end, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan for safety.”, assured Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Since the beginning of the conflict several truces have been announced, but none have been respected.

According to experts, these ceasefires make it possible to keep the corridors safe for the evacuation of foreigners and to continue the negotiations, which are taking place abroad.

A US ship managed to get more than 300 people to Saudi Arabia on Monday.

“Humanitarian situation on the edge”

The UN humanitarian officer, Martin Griffiths, warned on Sunday from the region that “the scale and speed with which events are unfolding in Sudan (are) unprecedented.”

“The humanitarian situation is reaching its limit” in this country, he warned. Sudan is one of the poorest in the world.

The massive looting of humanitarian offices and warehouses has “depleted most of our reserves”, he added.

The World Food Program resumed its activities, having been suspended after the death of three employees.

Aid is key in a country where a third of the inhabitants suffered from hunger before the war.

The World Health Organization (WHO), for its part, stated that the health crisis in Sudan led to a “catastrophe”.

After 20 years of international embargo, “The health system is facing multiple crises, with extremely fragile infrastructures”, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, its regional director, explained to AFP.

At the moment, “only 16% of Khartoum hospitals are operating at full capacity” and others were shelled, occupied by the belligerents or lacking personnel or supplies, he said.

So far the fighting has left 528 dead and 4,599 wounded, according to official figures, but this balance may be well below the real number.

The International Committee of the Red Cross managed on Sunday to introduce the first aid shipment since the start of the conflict, a total of eight tons of material that can help treat “1,500 wounded”.

In Khartoum, residents who have failed to flee are trying to survive amid a lack of food, water and electricity.

“timid efforts”

The authorities of the White Nile State, in southern Sudan, announced that in the “last days” 70,000 displaced people arrived.

The Arab League met in Egypt on Monday to discuss the situation, after the United Arab Emirates, which experts say supports General Daglo, announced that it had called the army chief.

General Burhan sent an envoy to Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Riyadh called for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to meet on Wednesday.

The UN is especially concerned about the situation in the West Darfur province, where around 100 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the organization.

This region suffered a bloody civil war that began in 2003 between the forces of the dictator Omar al Bashir and ethnic minorities.

Despite the ongoing rivalry between Burhan and Daglo, the two generals allied in a 2021 coup to sideline civilians from the government after al-Bashir’s ouster.

Shortly after, their differences began due to a disagreement on the integration of the paramilitaries within the army, which led to the conflict that is plaguing the country.

Source: AFP