Even when there is a ceasefire, combat in Sudan resumes at night
-
Raven Ruma
- . April 26, 2023
- . Update: April 27, 2023 6:18 pm
Even though the warring parties declared a ceasefire, fighting resumed in Sudan late on Tuesday as more people fled the capital Khartoum and former officials—including one who is being investigated for international war crimes—left prison.
A 72-hour ceasefire between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) will start on Tuesday.
A Reuters correspondent reported that after dusk, gunshots and explosions could be heard in Omdurman, one of Khartoum’s sister cities on the Nile River, where the army was using drones to strike RSF strongholds.
Additionally, the army employed drones to try and push rebels away from a gasoline refinery in Bahri, the third city at the meeting point of the Blue and White Niles.
Read | Major Updates: RSF breaks into Kober prison, frees detainees, Sudan police says
The paramilitaries have established themselves in residential districts since the army and RSF began fighting in Sudan on April 15, delaying the transition to civilian democracy. The army has attempted to target the paramilitaries from the air.
Residential areas have been converted into battlegrounds by the fighting. At least 459 people have been murdered, over 4,000 injured, hospitals have been wrecked, and food distribution has been restricted in a country where a third of its 46 million residents depend on aid.
13 people were hurt when a projectile that struck Al-Roumi Medical Center in Omdurman on Tuesday burst inside the building, according to a hospital official.
Former Minister Ahmed Haroun, who is sought by the International Criminal Court on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, claimed he and other officials were allowed to leave Kober prison as another indicator of the security situation being worse.
As a result of recent rumors of a jailbreak, Haroun claimed that circumstances in Kober had drastically deteriorated. In a recorded statement published on Sunday, a demonstrator who was detained there claimed that after a week without food or drink, the inmates had been released.
Haroun and the other freed officials worked for former president Omar Al-Bashir, who was overthrown by a popular uprising in 2019 after securing power in a military coup in 1989. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has charged Haroun with setting up militias to target people in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. Bashir’s location were not immediately known.
