Due to the Home Office’s reliance on old data regarding Sudan, an asylum seeker attempting to leave the country’s war-torn conditions had his application denied.
Despite the fact that conflict broke out in April of this year, it has been revealed that decision-makers were utilising data from 2021 to judge the safety of the nation.
The accuracy of Home Office asylum rulings has come under scrutiny following an investigation by i.
A rejection later sent last month said a Sudanese national doesn’t qualify for humanitarian protection because there is ‘not a real risk’ to him from ‘indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict’ in his home country.
The decision-maker says the Sudanese national would not ‘face a real risk of suffering serious harm’.
This is despite Sudan descending into civil war only three months ago, which has seen hundreds of people killed and more than 600,000 people leaving the country.
It’s not yet clear how many, if any, other cases have been assessed using outdated information.
Care4Calais, a refugee charity, described the situation as a ‘scandal’ and said the government ‘must immediately ensure that all asylum decisions are based on up-to-date country guidance’.
Hannah Marwood, legal access manager at the charity, said: ‘With over 5,000 Sudanese asylum seekers stuck in the government’s legacy backlog, they should be getting on with processing claims and offering them protection given the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
‘Everyone knows that the situation in Sudan has significantly worsened in recent months, and reports of ethnic cleansing of non-Arab Darfuris are particularly concerning.
‘Under these circumstances, it is a scandal that the government is rejecting the asylum claims of non-Arab Darfuris who fled Sudan due to previous persecution.
‘To do so using country information that is two years out of date is either negligent or speaks to the wider systemic issues facing Sudanese asylum seekers in the UK.’
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: ‘The situation in Sudan is dire and dangerous. The government should be opening up safe routes for people fleeing the conflict to find safety in the UK – particularly people with family here – and encouraging other countries to do the same.
‘This could provide some relief to neighbouring countries, deprive smugglers of opportunities to exploit people’s desperate need to attempt perilous journeys and ultimately save lives.’
The Home Office could not explain why updated information wasn’t used when assessing the man’s case. A spokesman confirmed they would be in touch with the Sudanese national to ‘review his asylum application’.
They added: ‘All asylum applications are considered on their individual merits in line with the asylum rules and the evidence presented.’
Sources at the Home Office insisted country information was under constant review and updated periodically, and that decisions made were well reasoned.
Witnesses and an official report that a recent Sudanese army air strike on the capital resulted in the deaths of at least 22 people, with numerous others sustaining injuries.
Among the victims were women and children, as per accounts from eyewitnesses.
The airstrike targeted the Dar es Salaam district in Omdurman, situated on the opposite side of the Nile from the capital, Khartoum.
The attack occurred in the early hours of Saturday. Since April, the army and a paramilitary force have been engaged in a power struggle for control over the capital.
The conflict originated from a disagreement between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the army, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), regarding the country’s future direction.
A health official from Khartoum state, quoted by Reuters, confirmed that the airstrike resulted in the deaths of at least 22 people.
However, the RSF claimed that the death toll was 31, emphasizing that the strike caused significant damage to residential properties.
The situation in Sudan remains volatile and the loss of civilian lives is deeply tragic.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) currently holds control over significant parts of Khartoum, as well as its neighboring cities of Omdurman and Bahri. In response, the army has been conducting frequent artillery and air attacks in an attempt to dislodge the paramilitary fighters. However, it is believed that the air strike on Saturday may have resulted in one of the highest death tolls from a single attack.
The ongoing conflict, spanning twelve weeks, has left the civilian population in the capital in a state of fear and distress. Shops and markets remain closed, and the majority of medical facilities have ceased operations. The clashes have extended beyond the city, reaching the western Darfur region where ethnic violence has erupted.
Throughout the country, hundreds of people have lost their lives, and nearly three million individuals have been displaced from their homes. While some temporary ceasefires have been attempted, they have been short-lived.
The East African regional bloc, Igad, is making efforts to revive peace negotiations at a summit scheduled for Monday in Ethiopia. However, a spokesperson for General Burhan stated that he would not attend the meeting.
The situation in Sudan remains deeply concerning, with widespread violence and displacement impacting the lives of the civilian population.
The United Nations has strongly denounced the escalating prevalence of sexual violence targeting women and girls in Sudan during the ongoing conflict that has spanned over two months.
The UN human rights office in Sudan has reported receiving credible information regarding more than 20 cases of conflict-related sexual violence, affecting at least 57 women and girls. Disturbingly, one incident involved the rape of up to 20 women in a single attack.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s chief humanitarian official, expressed deep concern over these abhorrent acts and emphasized that it is morally unacceptable for Sudan’s women and children to endure such traumatizing experiences.
Witnesses have reported that a fighter plane has been shot down in Khartoum on Tuesday, as fighting and artillery fire struck numerous districts in Sudan’s war-torn capital.
“We saw pilots parachuting as the plane dived towards the ground ,” said a witness in northern Khartoum. A source within the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FSR) told AFP that the FSR had shot down the army plane.
The FSR said they had “arrested the pilot after he landed” in a statement, also accusing the army of “heinous massacres” in the Khartoum region.
The Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane , has been at war since April 15 with the paramilitaries of the FSR led by its former number two, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo .
The conflict has killed nearly 3,000 people, according to the NGO Acled, and 2.8 million displaced persons and refugees, according to the UN. A resident of Omdurman, in the northern suburbs of the capital, reported on Tuesday “violent clashes using various types of weapons”.
Other witnesses said they observed “airstrikes (near) the state television building”, which the RSF launched an attack on this week and used anti-aircraft missiles on Tuesday.
In the east of the capital, residents also reported clashes with machine guns.
The army also “launched rockets and heavy artillery” at RSF bases in the centre and north of the capital, a witness said. Homes were damaged and civilians were rushed to one of the few hospitals still operational, another added.
In Khartoum and the western Darfur region, the fighting mainly affected densely populated neighborhoods. The streets are littered with dead bodies and houses have been targeted by missiles, witnesses said.
Trapped by the fighting, civilians have had to ration water, food, electricity and medicine for almost three months.
An international medical NGO on Sunday reported that at least 13 children have passed away recently during a possible measles outbreak in internal displacement camps in Sudan’s White Nile state, amid fighting between the two warring factions of the country.
“The circumstance is urgent. The most critical health issues, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, are suspected measles and child malnutrition.
MSF Sudan stated in a series of tweets: “Sudan‘s White Nile state is receiving an increasing number of refugees from the fighting. Thousands are being housed in nine camps, mostly women and kids.
From June 6 to 27, the NGO treated 223 children with suspected measles in White Nile camps, it said, with 72 – including the 13 who died – admitted to two clinics it supports.
“We are receiving sick children with suspected measles every day, most with complications,” MSF Sudan tweeted.
The NGO said it had received a total of 3,145 patients to the two clinics in the month of June, adding, “as more people arrive, there’s an urgent need to increase assistance, scale up services like vaccinations, nutritional support, shelter, water & sanitation.”
“The rainy season is approaching, and we’re concerned about a rise in waterborne diseases and malaria endemic to the area,” MSF Sudan warned.
There has been a steep rise in Sudanese refugees since fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out on April 15. Nearly 2.8 million people have fled, according to data from IOM, the UN Migration Agency.
At least 2,152,936 people are estimated to have been internally displaced, while another 644,861 fled across Sudan’s borders into neighboring countries, according to the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix report published Tuesday.
The governor of North Darfur state in Sudan has expressed the success of a mediation team established in the city, as they have effectively facilitated a ceasefire among the warring parties and have started providing essential services.
Nimir Abdel Rahman, in an interview with Sudan Lifeline radio station, stated that although occasional violations have occurred in the state, all parties involved are now fully committed to the ceasefire and are determined to avoid any resumption of hostilities.
Collaborating with the state government, the Mediation and Elders Committee has begun the provision of basic services such as water, electricity, and healthcare. Additionally, public markets have been reopened under the protection of joint security forces.
Efforts are underway to ensure the arrival of medical missions and the arrangements for providing food and shelter to civilians are being made.
As part of an agreement between the elders’ committee and the warring forces, all humanitarian convoys traveling from the eastern state of the White Nile through North Kordofan, North Darfur, and other Sudanese states will receive protection.
However, the governor acknowledges that there are no guarantees regarding the forces’ compliance with the agreement, highlighting the ongoing challenges in maintaining the agreed-upon terms.
“The only guarantee we have is their respect for citizens, public utilities and the state institutions, which will be all destroyed if the fighting is resumed. Only civilians will be harmed in case the fighting is resumed.”
As refugees continue to pour across its border in large numbers, Ethiopia says it is concerned about the unrest spreading outside of Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum.
There was now “worrying” fighting involving a rebel group in South Kordofan state, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Meles Alem.
According to the UN, more than 50,000 people have crossed borders into Ethiopia since the conflict began in April between the Sudan’s army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Last week, the army accused SPLM-North, a powerful rebel group with ties in neighbouring South Sudan and that controls areas in the South Kordofan state, of launching attacks.
With tensions escalating around the state’s capital Kadugli, many have fled the state. Violence has also been reported in Blue Nile state bordering Ethiopia.
The UN had said the the recent violence in Kurmuk locality of the Blue Nile was gravely concerning.
Mr Meles also mentioned the clashes in West Darfur, where the conflict has inflamed already fraught ethnic tensions between Arab and African communities similar to the violence that erupted two decades ago.
As battle between the Sudanese army forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues, evidence of major damage in another area of the West Darfur region of Sudan has emerged.
Nasa data from 27 June shows what appear to be a number of fires concentrated in the area of Murnei, about 80km (50 miles) south of the regional capital of El Geneina, which itself suffered extensive damage in mid-May.
We found satellite images showing the damage in Murnei occurred between 26 June and 28 June, with an image from yesterday showing smoke still visible at one location.
The heat signatures earlier in the week were picked up by Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). It’s not clear exactly which buildings might be burning, as there’s little information coming out of that area.
It is the latest to suffer destruction from the conflict in the wider Darfur area, which has seen particularly intense fighting in recent weeks.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled across the border into Chad, since the fighting began.
The 24-hour ceasefire that was agreed upon in Sudan has been violated, casting a shadow over the uniqueEid al-Adha celebrations for the war-stricken people of Sudan, who have endured over 70 days of conflict.
Reports from residents indicate that there were heavy gunfire sounds in certain areas of the capital, Khartoum, early on Wednesday.
Additionally, the Sudanese army launched artillery and air strikes against positions held by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Negotiations between the conflicting parties are currently suspended, prolonging the uncertainty and tension in the region.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Hiba Morgan, reporting from Omdurman, a city situated across the Nile from Khartoum, observed a lack of the usual festive atmosphere associated with Eid, as very few people were seen on the streets.
Many fear the 17th ceasefire to be announced since the start of the conflict on April 15 is no guarantee of their safety after violations of the previous ceasefires.
The heads of the army and RSF each announced a unilateral truce on Tuesday for Eid.
“A ceasefire has very little meaning because, again, this Eid al-Adha [the Sudanese] can’t really celebrate,” Morgan said, adding that the peacetime mood of Eid has instead been replaced by sadness from people having lost family members or being displaced due to the conflict.
Many do not have the financial capabilities to celebrate the holiday either.
Thousands fleeing the conflict and waiting along the border with Egypt or those displaced from the western region of Darfur into neighboring Chad are not celebrating the festival after the ordeals they have been through.
Sudan’s conflict has killed at least 2,000 civilians and wounded many more.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated almost 2 million people have been displaced internally and more than 600,000 have fled to neighboring countries.
Peace talks brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia have failed to make progress, and fighting has intensified in recent weeks as a result.
The leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), has declared a unilateral ceasefire in the conflict with the Sudanese army.
The ceasefire is scheduled to begin today, coinciding with the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, which starts on Wednesday.
In an audio recording broadcast on Al Arabiya television, Hemedti announced the temporary pause in the conflict, stating that it would be in effect on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Notably, Hemedti also expressed condemnation for the abuses committed against civilians, including those carried out by his own forces.
The RSF has faced accusations of involvement in violations in the Darfur region.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has indicated that over 10,000 individuals have officially registered as refugees in South Sudan, having escaped the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
While, overall, 130,000 people have fled into South Sudan since the fighting started in April, most of them were South Sudanese returning home.
Ocha said the latest influx continues to compound a dire situation as the arrival numbers are projected to continue to increase as fighting continues.
Among those arriving include unaccompanied or separated children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, those with urgent medical needs, single- or female-headed households and pregnant women, Ocha added.
Many arrivals have witnessed, or were subjected to, violence and exploitation such as extortion and looting, including during their journey to South Sudan.
Looking at the rest of Sudan’s neighbours, Egypt – with 255,000 – and Chad – with 120,000 – have taken in the bulk of the refugees fleeing the violence.
Violent confrontations have erupted across the capital of Sudan as a three-day ceasefire, which expired in the early morning, neared its end.
Eyewitnesses have reported clashes between the Sudanese army and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum.
Furthermore, there have been accounts of anti-aircraft fire during a military aircraft operation in Omdurman.
The most recent cessation of hostilities was facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States. However, similar to previous ceasefires, there have been reports of violations from both sides involved in the conflict.
The armed conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary RSF initially commenced in April and has continued to escalate.
An international donors’ meeting on Sudan will be launched by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Geneva today as the second day of a 72-hour ceasefire between the country’s warring factions.
The UN is organising the event in conjunction with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany.
The Qatari foreign ministry said on Sunday that the conference will “support the humanitarian response in Sudan and the region”.
Sudan was meanwhile reportedly “completely calm” on Sunday, the first day of a new 72-hour ceasefire between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The temporary suspension of fighting took effect at 06:00 local time (04:00 GMT) and was announced on Saturday by mediators Saudi Arabia and the US.
The UN said in a statement Sunday that some 1.7 million people were internally displaced in Sudan as a result of the conflict.
About 500,000 others have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
The UN and others have expressed concern over “the rapidly deteriorating situation in Darfur where the conflict has taken on an ethnic dimension”.
Armed militants in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, looted the residence of the Tunisian ambassador to Sudan, the Tunisian foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The foreign ministry called the development “a grave violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the headquarters of diplomatic missions”.
The ministry called for the perpetrators “to be tracked down and held accountable” while calling for restraint and an immediate end to the fighting in Sudan which began in April.
A number of embassies in Khartoum have been ransacked since the start of fighting in April, including those of Qatar, Kuwait, Libya, Jordan and Oman.
Tragedy struck in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, as seventeen individuals, including five children, lost their lives in an airstrike, according to officials.
The devastating attack occurred in the densely populated Yarmouk district, where twenty-five homes were destroyed on Saturday.
This deadly incident took place just a day after a high-ranking army general issued a threat to escalate attacks against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted in mid-April due to a fierce power struggle within the country’s military leadership.
By early June, the RSF declared its complete control over Yarmouk, an area in the capital known for housing an arms manufacturing facility. However, the situation escalated further on Saturday with the tragic airstrike.
In an effort to mitigate the violence, the warring factions reached an agreement mediated by Saudi and US representatives. The agreement stipulated a 72-hour ceasefire set to commence on Sunday at 06:00 local time (04:00 GMT).
It is important to note that similar ceasefires in the past have not been effectively observed.
Precise figures on the number of people killed in the fighting are difficult to establish, but it is believed to be well over 1,000, including many civilians caught in the crossfire.
Roughly 2.2 million people have been displaced within the country and more than half a million are sheltering in neighbouring countries, according to the UN.
Several ceasefires have been announced to allow people to escape the fighting but these have not been observed.
The recent attack targeted civilians in Mayo, Yarmouk, and Mandela areas, according to the RSF. The army has not commented.
Since the hostilities began, tens of thousands of civilians have fled across the border into neighbouring Chad.
Doctors and hospitals there have been overstretched and struggling to cope.
The violence has also resurrected a two-decade-old conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
Amid a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s West Darfur state, an increasing number of individuals are fleeing and seeking refuge in Chad.
Thousands of people are pouring into Chad, escaping the escalating violence. Recognizing the urgent need for aid, a United Nations official is striving to gain access to the war-torn region to deliver critical medical supplies, food aid, and other essential assistance to alleviate the suffering caused by the conflict.
“Darfur is an area we have not been able to access and there is significant fighting [there],” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“We need to be able to bring in staff. We need to be able to get agreements so that we can move along the routes [and] our trucks that are presently in parts of the country can make their way to Darfur,” she said, calling for a security agreement for the safe movement of aid.
In the two months since the Darfur city of el-Geneina has been under siege, Adam Mohd Yousef has lost 22 members of his family – 15 of them children.
“The Sudanese government didn’t help us. They see what is happening and just watch us burn,” he told Al Jazeera, bursting into tears.
Yousef is among the thousands of Sudanese refugees crossing into Chad to escape violence in the continuing war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the situation in Darfur particularly catastrophic according to humanitarian groups and international actors.
“The UNHCR is here assessing the situation and they say it has never – in the past two months of war – ever, been this bad, certainly not at this border check post in Adre,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, from the Chadian city on the border with Sudan.
The UNCHR says there is not enough international interest in the crisis and that they are underfunded, Basravi said.
At least 1,000 people have been killed in el-Geneina in particular, where there have been new waves of attacks by Arab nomadic tribes with ties to the RSF. The fighting has also sent more than 270,000 refugees across the border to Chad.
The refugees at the Adre checkpoint told Al Jazeera their city of el-Geneina no longer exists, as thousands turn up each day to the border crossing, tired, desperate, and in fear for their lives and future. Many of those crossing are also unaccompanied children who are picked up by strangers along the way.
“I don’t know where my children are. I had to leave them behind,” a sobbing woman told Al Jazeera, before falling down in exhaustion.
While UN agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) have been able to get aid in other fighting strongholds like the capital, Khartoum, they have been unable to provide relief in Darfur.
On Thursday, the United States and UN said the situation there could herald a repeat of past mass atrocities.
Events in the region are “an ominous reminder of the horrific events that led the United States to determine in 2004 that genocide had been committed in Darfur,” the US State Department said in a statement.
“Darfur is rapidly spiraling into a humanitarian calamity. The world cannot allow this to happen. Not again,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths also said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the killing of West Darfur state Governor Khamis Abakar after he publicly blamed the deaths of civilians on the RSF marked a new escalation in the conflict.
The commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as “Hemedti”, has again denied that his paramilitary group has links to Russia’s Wagner mercenaries.
Hemedti’s interview with Italy’s Agenzia Nova newspaper comes as fighting between the RSF and the army enters its third month.
The RSF leader also denied reports his force had been receiving “military supplies or training from external parties”, terming the accusations “baseless rumours”.
In April, the Wagner Group said it had not deployed mercenaries to Sudan in over two years.
Authorities in Sudan claim that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) assassinated the governor of the West Darfur province.eople
Only hours earlier, Khamis Abbakar had accused both the RSF and allied militias of committing genocide against people from the Masalit ethnic group.
Mr Abbakar, who was killed in El Geneina, had warned that the attacks had spread across the city and called for international intervention.
The RSF has not commented on the allegation.
There has been similar violence in the cities of Nyala and Zalingei.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he’s appalled by the escalating ethnic and sexual dimension of the violence against civilians in Darfur.
The region has seen periods of conflict since the early 2000s when millions were displaced and hundreds of thousands killed after Arab militias were deployed to fight non-Arab rebels.
Zeinab’s attempt to escape the war-ravaged city of Khartoum in search of safety was thwarted by paramilitary fighters, who subjected her and other women on the journey to harm, denying them the chance to find refuge.
In mid-May, one month after fighting broke between Sudan’s army chief and his deputy (head of the paramilitary group RSF) Zeinab says, herself, her sister and other women who were fleeing Khartoum in a minibus were raped.
The vehicle transporting them was stopped at an RSF checkpoint. There, fighters separated the female from male passengers.
Terrified, they were marched into a warehouse where a man “in civilian clothes who seemed to be their commander” ordered Zeinab to the ground.
The woman tried to hide her younger sister, in vain. As she attempted to resist she was soon obliged to give up, she recounted her ordeal from another country where she found refuge.
“I was pinned down” one man pointing a rifle to her chest “while the other raped me,” Zeinab told AFP. “When he was done, they switched. They wanted to keep my sister with them. I begged them on my hands and knees to let her go.”
“I was sure we were about to die,” she told AFP, revealing, her younger sister and two other women, one with an infant daughter, were all raped.
Rape, a weapon of war
Dozens of women have reported similar attacks — in their homes, by the roadside and in commandeered hotels — since the war erupted in mid-April between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Zeinab and the other women raped on that fateful day were eventually allowed to leave and escaped to Madani, 200 kilometers away, where they reported the attack to police and went to a hospital.
“We’re not the first people this has happened to, or the last,” she said.
Sudan’s war has claimed at least 1,800 lives and displaced more than 1.5 million people.
The horrors of the conflict have been compounded by a wave of sexual violence, say survivors, medics and activists who spoke to AFP.
A Sudanese doctor has told the international media that the RSF paramilitaries are enforcing a reign of terror across the metropolis they rule.
Mohammed Gibbril said they were raiding and looting houses, taking hostages and patrolling the streets of Khartoum.
Some of those recruited to their fight against the Sudanese army were children.
Mr Gibbril said he had been severely beaten during one such raid last Monday.
Many similar claims have been made by other residents of Khartoum.
The RSF have said on Facebook that they’re ready for a new ceasefire with the army.
The latest truce, which ended on Sunday, was better respected than previous ceasefires, though fighting has again erupted with witnesses reporting warplanes in the skies over Khartoum, and gun and shellfire.
Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum has experienced a period of relative calm during the initial hours of a 24-hour ceasefire. This ceasefire marks the latest effort to bring an end to the intense conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United States and Saudi Arabia-brokered ceasefire took effect from 6am (04:00 GMT) on Saturday with hopes by the mediators that a pause in fighting will facilitate the safe passage of desperately needed humanitarian aid across the country.
“We have not been able to hear any sound of artillery shellings,” Morgan said on Saturday from Omdurman, located on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital.
The ceasefire is also hoped to halt the fighting that has been raging since April 15 when a rivalry between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo exploded into open warfare.
A string of previous ceasefires have fallen through with both sides accusing the other of violations.
The warring parties have agreed to abide by the ceasefire, Morgan said, but the shorter ceasefire when compared with others in the past is partly to test whether it will actually be honoured this time.
The US and Saudi Arabia said they shared “frustration” over the past violations, threatening to dismantle ceasefire talks if fighting continues.
Residents are waiting to see how the ceasefire will play out before they attempt to make a move, whether to stock up on basic commodities, or to try and leave Khartoum because of the continuing fighting, Morgan said.
“A one-day truce is much less than we aspire for,” a resident of Khartoum North, Mahmud Bashir, told the AFP news agency. “We look forward to an end to this damned war.”
In the week before the ceasefire, fighting ramped up around crucial army bases, with the RSF claiming to have taken control of an arms manufacturing complex in the southern part of the capital.
Residents also reported anti-aircraft missiles firing in southern Khartoum and the Sharg el-Nil district across the Nile, which came under air attack just before the ceasefire took effect.
“Many residents say that the situation is getting desperate. We’re talking about some residential areas where there are people remaining, but there’s a lack of access to basic necessities,” said Morgan.
Aid agencies are hoping to intervene to alleviate some of the shortages, but will need a guarantee of safe passage from the warring sides to reach some parts of the capital, she added.
Khartoum residents told Morgan they hoped the 24-hour truce would allow some humanitarian aid to come in, especially medical assistance for those who are desperately in need, including those injured in the fighting.
The state-run news agency Suna, says Sudan’s army leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has replaced two state governors.
It comes as fighting intensifies in the capital, Khartoum, and other areas between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the two seized power in a coup in October 2021 but are now involved in a power struggle.
Gen Burhan dismissed North Kordofan state governor Fadlallah Mohamed Ali al-Tom, and Sennar state’s Al-Alim Ibrahim al-Nour. Caretaker governors have been appointed.
No reason was given for their dismissal.
Parts of North Kordofan have witnessed fierce battles between the warring parties though there has been no fighting in Sennar state.
At least 883 civilians have been killed and more than 3,800 others wounded since the conflict erupted on 15 April.
Ten of citizens of Congo died on Sunday June 2023 after an airstrike “bombarded” their university campus in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, according to the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s administration.
The foreign affairs ministry said in a statement that it had “learned with deep dismay” the killing of its citizens at the International University of Africa.
Minister Christophe Lutundula said there were indications that the air strikes were “carried out by the regular army on an area occupied by civilian and unarmed populations, including foreign nationals, seriously wounded other compatriots”.
The minister said thegovernmentwas waiting for the Sudanese authorities to shed more light about the incident.
Khartoum has been at the centre of fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since 15 April, with civilians caught in the crossfire.
DR Congo’s government has called for a humanitarian corridor to enable it to evacuate its wounded citizens and others still stranded in Khartoum.
The deputy head of Sudan’s ruling council, Malik Agar, has welcomed negotiations for a further ceasefire but said no truce can hold until all forces are withdrawn from the capital.
There’s been an alarming escalation of violence in Khartoum and in the western Darfur region since the negotiations in Saudi Arabia broke down last week.
Both the army and the rival paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), accused each other of violating the truce, but negotiators have remained in Jeddah.
Mr Agar said the talks there represented the best hope of ending the fighting.
Sudanese military leader Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan recently appointed Mr Agar, a former rebel leader, to replace his former deputy Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who heads the RSF.
Most of the troops in Khartoum are RSF fighters, and the army appears to have resumed its attempts to blast them out of the positions they’re holding.
The diplomatic mission of Kenya in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, has been closed as clashes intensify between the rival military forces.
The foreign ministry said the mission had remained open to support the evacuation of Kenyan citizens, but was now closed as it had come under threat from the fighting.
Nairobi has been supporting African initiatives to end the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
More shelling has been reported in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, as fighting between the country’s warring generals intensifies.
Witnesses reported artillery fire around the state television building in the adjoining city of Omdurman.
The army announced it had brought reinforcements to the capital from other parts of Sudan.
Fighting has continued for nearly seven weeks, between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, despite efforts to broker a humanitarian ceasefire.
On Thursday the US issued sanctions against four Sudanese companies and several individuals, after the collapse of a US-Saudi brokered truce.
A market in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, was struck by rockets, resulting in the death of 18 people and leaving over 100 wounded, as reported by doctors and residents.
The attack occurred amidst ongoing conflicts between rival military forces, following the collapse of truce talks mediated by the US and Saudi Arabia.
The violence on Wednesday, which took place in the Mayo area in the south of Khartoum, involved artillery fire and aerial bombardment.
This incident marked the highest number of civilian casualties in a single event in the capital since the war began in April.
The official count of civilian deaths over the past seven weeks stands at least 883, although the actual number is believed to be much higher.
Local neighborhood organizations, involved in providing food and medicine to Khartoum’s residents, described the situation as catastrophic and appealed for the assistance of doctors and blood donations.
Due to the conflict occurring in urban areas, civilians remain in constant danger.
On Tuesday, the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), their rivals, had agreed to extend a humanitarian ceasefire deal brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia for an additional five days.
However, the army withdrew from the talks the following day, accusing the RSF of not adhering to the terms of the agreement.
The US stated that both sides had violated the ceasefire and expressed its willingness to mediate a truce once they were genuinely committed to ending the violence.
While the ceasefire allowed some urgent aid to reach approximately two million people, the ongoing insecurity hindered deliveries to many more and impeded efforts to restore essential services, according to a spokesperson from the US State Department.
The UN reports that 25 million people in Sudan, over half the country’s population, are currently in need of humanitarian aid and protection.
With the talks no longer in progress, there is a concern that the fighting may escalate. Heavy fire was reported on Thursday morning in Bahri and Omdurman, cities located across the River Nile from Khartoum.
Amidst the outbreak of conflict in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah found herself frantically moving from room to room in Sudan‘s largest orphanage, desperately attempting to provide care for hundreds of babies and toddlers.
The fighting had deterred most of the staff, leaving only a handful to manage the overwhelming situation. Within the expansive building, the cries of children filled the air, amplified by the heavy gunfire reverberating in the vicinity.
Tragically, a wave of deaths followed. The infants residing on the upper floors of the government-operated orphanage, known as Mygoma, fell victim to severe malnutrition and dehydration due to the lack of sufficient staff to attend to their needs.
Dr Abdullah recounted how the already-vulnerable newborns in her ground-floor medical clinic also faced a dire fate. Some succumbed to a high fever, unable to receive the necessary care.
“They needed to be fed every three hours. There was no one there,” said Abdullah, speaking by phone from the orphanage, the cries of wailing babies audible in the background. “We tried to give intravenous therapy but most of the time we couldn’t rescue the children.”
The daily deaths ticked up to two, three, four and higher, Abdullah said. At least 50 children – at least two dozen of them babies – have died at the orphanage in the six weeks since the war broke out in mid-April, according to Abdullah. That includes at least 13 babies who died on Friday, May 26, she said.
A senior orphanage official confirmed those figures and a surgeon who has volunteered at the facility during the war said there had been at least several dozen deaths of orphans. Both said the deaths were mostly of newborns and others under a year old. All three cited malnourishment, dehydration and infections as the main causes.
There were further deaths over this past weekend. Reuters reviewed seven death certificates dated Saturday or Sunday that were shared by Heba Abdullah, an orphan-turned-carer. All cited circulatory failure as the cause of death, and all but one also listed fever, malnutrition, or sepsis as contributing causes.
The scenes of babies lying dead in their cribs have been “terrifying,” Abdullah said. “It is very painful.”
Reuters spoke to eight other people who have either visited the orphanage since the war began or have been in touch with other visitors. All said conditions have deteriorated badly and deaths have spiked.
Among them is Siddig Frini, general manager of Khartoum state’s ministry of social development, which oversees care centres, including budget, staffing and supplies. He acknowledged a rise in deaths at Mygoma, attributing it mainly to staff shortages and recurrent power outages caused by the fighting. Without working ceiling fans and air conditioning, rooms turn stiflingly hot in Khartoum’s baking May weather, and the lack of power makes sterilising equipment difficult.
Frini and the director of the orphanage, Zeinab Jouda, referred questions about the total death toll to Abdullah, Mygoma’s medical chief. Jouda said she was aware of more than 40 deaths, telling Reuters the fighting kept the carers – known as nannies – and other staff away in the early days of the war. As of Friday, May 26, she said that there are ongoing discussions about evacuating orphans out of Khartoum.
Mohammed Abdel Rahman, director of emergency operations at Sudan’s health ministry, said a team is investigating what is happening at Mygoma and will release the results once done.
The area remains dangerous. Late last week, airstrikes and artillery slammed the district where Mygoma is located, according to Abdullah the doctor and two others. Following an explosion at a neighbouring building, babies had to be evacuated from one of the orphanage’s rooms, said carer Heba Abdullah.
INVISIBLE VICTIMS OF A LARGER WAR
Mygoma’s dead babies are among the invisible victims of the war in Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country by area. The fighting has killed more than 700 people, injured thousands of others and displaced at least 1.3 million people within Sudan or neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations.
The real death toll is likely to be higher. Many of the health and government offices that would track fatalities in Khartoum, where fighting has been heaviest, have ceased to function. Sudan’s health ministry has separately recorded hundreds of deaths in the city of El Geneina in Darfur region, where violence also has flared.
War erupted in Khartoum on April 15between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The two had been preparing to sign on to a new political transition to elections under a civilian government. Together they had toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup.
On May 20, the two sides signed a seven-day ceasefire agreement to allow the delivery of humanitarian relief. The accord brought some respite from heavy fighting in the Sudanese capital but little increase in aid.
Representatives for the army and RSF didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Sudan, with a population of about 49 million, is among the poorest countries in the world. The fighting has hammered its already stretched healthcare and other infrastructure, including hospitals and airports. Nearly 16 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance before the war began. That figure has now jumped to 25 million, according to the United Nations. More than two-thirds of hospitals in combat areas are out of service, according to the World Health Organization.
Emad Abdel Moneim, general manager of al-Dayat, Sudan’s largest maternity hospital, said hospital staff had to relocate in late April because of the war. He said staff moved a large number of patients but had to leave some behind: those on ventilators and in incubators. Evacuating them would have required well-equipped ambulances, which were unavailable. He said around nine babies died, in addition to an unspecified number of adults in the intensive care unit. Two other sources confirmed some patients were left behind, but said they had no information about deaths.
When asked about the deaths at the maternity hospital, Abdel Rahman, the national health ministry official, said he was unaware of any, and that he doubted patients were left behind and declined to elaborate further.
Underscoring the health fallout on Sudanese of all ages, there have also been deaths at a care centre for the elderly in Khartoum, according to care worker Radwan Ali Nouri. He said five of the elderly residents of the al-Daw Hajoj centre have died due to hunger and lack of care. Nouri shared one photograph of what he said was the covered body of a resident who had died that morning.
Frini, the Khartoum state social development official, said the deaths reported at the elder care centre are within the “normal rate” and denied that any residents have died of hunger.
The number of people dying in the violence is a fraction of those succumbing to illnesses, said Attia Abdullah, secretary general of the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, a doctors’ union. “The health situation is deteriorating every day,” he said.
ABANDONED CHILDREN
Officially called The Orphan’s Care Centre, Mygoma, the orphanage is housed in a three-storey building in central Khartoum. It is close to the fighting. Bullets have rained down on the building, staff and volunteers say. Babies in the first days slept on the floors away from the windows, one doctor said.
Established in 1961, Mygoma typically receives hundreds of babies a year, according to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, which has provided support. Having a child outside of marriage bears a stigma in predominantly Muslim Sudan.
Even before the conflict, Mygoma struggled. It was home to around 400 children under the age of five, many of them babies. The orphans live in cramped quarters: There are an average of about 25 children per room, and babies often lie two or three to a crib, according to the orphanage official and MSF nurses who worked at Mygoma last year. Children often arrive in poor health, they said.
The orphanage has experienced spikes in deaths over the years. It has been haunted by hygiene problems, underpaid workers, staffing shortages, and a lack of funding for hospital treatment, according to the MSF.
Mygoma’s mortality rate reached about 75% in 2003, according to MSF, which stepped in to help the orphanage that year. In 2007, authorities told Reuters that 77 children died at Mygoma that September, which a charity working with the orphanage at the time attributed to a large intake of babies in a weakened state.
MSF says it intervened to assist again from 2021 through 2022, after the average death toll reached about 12 a month, providing extra financial support to pay caregivers and to refer sick children to hospitals. The toll fell by about half during that time, according to MSF.
When the war broke out, most orphanage workers stayed home. Mygoma was so understaffed that there were only about 20 nannies for the roughly 400 children, according to Doaa Ibrahim, a doctor at the orphanage. That’s a ratio of one to 20. Normally, the ratio is about one to five, she and others said.
“I worked as a nanny, nurse, and a doctor, feeding one baby, giving antibiotics to some, changing diapers for others,” Dr Ibrahim said. She said when she was able to take a rest, she didn’t know “how many I would find dead when I woke up.”
Ibrahim said she soon collapsed of exhaustion and fever and had to leave Mygoma four days into the war. She added: “God forgive us if we didn’t do our best.”
‘LOSING BABIES DAILY’
Adding to the strain, the orphanage took on more children. In the first week of the war, two care centres sent dozens of older girls and boys to Mygoma, and hospitals returned about 10 babies who had been sent out for treatment by the orphanage’s medical staff, according to Dr Abdullah.
Abdullah Adam, a surgeon, volunteered at the orphanage during the first five weeks of the war. In the first week, Dr Adam launched an online appeal for people to come help feed the babies. Some volunteers responded, but none were paediatricians, he said.
As long as the fighting continues, supplies will be short and staff will have trouble returning for fear of getting caught in crossfire, said Adam. As he spoke to Reuters on May 10, he held out the phone to capture the sound of shelling.
“All of Khartoum is a military zone and no one dares to move,” he said.
The infants remain without enough carers, in soiled diapers, leaving them susceptible to skin rashes, infections, and fever, the orphanage official and Dr Ibrahim said. Compounding the stress on the children is Khartoum’s brutal heat, which has at times reached about 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) this month.
“We are losing babies daily,” reads a May 16 Facebook post by Hadhreen, a non-governmental organisation that is helping collect donations for Mygoma to pay for workers and supplies. “Between 6 and 18 months old. Same symptoms. High fever. After four hours, innocent souls go to God who is more generous than any of us.”
In a room near the orphanage’s gates, the small bodies of the dead are washed and wrapped in white cloth, said the orphanage official and Dr. Ibrahim.
Even after death, the war stalks the children. Orphans used to be buried in a cemetery to the west of Mygoma but it became too dangerous to travel there, according to Marine Alneel, who has been volunteering at Mygoma in recent weeks. Staff started using another burial place, to the northeast, according to the orphanage official.
Getting the bodies there has now also become dangerous, said Dr Abdullah, speaking by phone on Thursday. She said that a day earlier, two babies who died were instead buried in a city square close to the orphanage. So were six civilians killed in shelling nearby, the doctor added.
Data obtained by BBC News Arabic, has it that both parties in Sudan’s conflict may be committing war crimes against medical facilities and personnel.
Hospitals have been hit by airstrikes and artillery fire while patients were still in the building and doctors have also been singled out for attack – all of which are potential war crimes.
Only a handful of the 88 hospitals in the capital, Khartoum, remain open after weeks of fighting, according to Sudan’s Doctors Union.
The BBC team used satellite data and mapping tools, analysed user-generated content on a huge scale, and spoke to dozens of doctors, to build a picture of how hospitals and clinics are being affected.
The World Health Organization (WHO) called the attacks “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law” adding that they “must stop now”.
The fighting in Sudan began on 15 April and was triggered by a power struggle between former allies – the leaders of the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Khartoum’s Ibn Sina hospital is one of a number the BBC has identified as having been targeted in an airstrike or by artillery fire when medics were treating civilian patients.
Dr Alaa is a surgeon at the hospital and was present when the attack happened on 19 April.
“There wasn’t any warning. Ibn Sina hospital where I worked was hit by three bombs, while a fourth bomb hit the nurses’ house which was entirely set on fire,” he said.
Image caption,An image from inside Ibn Sina hospital shows the damage there after an attack
Christian de Vos, an international criminal law expert with NGO Physicians for Human Rights, says this could be classed as a war crime.
“The duty to warn of any impending airstrike to ensure… that all civilians are able to evacuate a hospital prior to an airstrike – that is very clear under the laws of war,” he said.
Looking at the images of the attack, forensic weapons expert Chris Cobb-Smith said it could have been caused by artillery fire.
Uncertainty over the kind of weapon used means it is hard to be sure which side was responsible, or whether this was a targeted attack.
Image caption,A still taken from a video appears to show RSF fighters entering Khartoum’s Al Saha hospital
Another medical facility hit was the East Nile hospital – one of the last operating in that part of the capital.
The BBC has seen evidence of RSF fighters surrounding it with their vehicles and anti-aircraft weapons.
There have been reports of patients being forcibly evacuated from the building. But we have also spoken to witnesses who say civilians continued to be treated alongside the RSF soldiers.
On 1 May, a public area next to the East Nile hospital was hit by a Sudanese army airstrike. There was no warning, according to sources the BBC has spoken to.
Five civilians died in that attack.
There was a further airstrike two weeks later but there has been no independent confirmation of the number of injured.
The WHO has reported that nine hospitals have been taken over by fighters from one side or the other.
“The preferential treatment of soldiers over civilians [is] not an appropriate use of a medical facility and it may well constitute a violation of the laws of war,” Mr De Vos said.
A political advisor to the RSF, Mostafa Mohamed Ibrahim, denied that they were preventing the treatment of civilians. He told the BBC: “Our forces are just spreading… they are not occupying and don’t stop civilians from being treated in these hospitals.”
Image caption,The fighting has made it increasingly difficult for civilian patients to be treated
The Sudanese army did not provide a response to this investigation’s findings.
There is also evidence of another potential war crime – the targeting of doctors.
The BBC has seen social media messages threatening doctors by name, even sharing their ID number. The messages accuse them of supporting the RSF and receiving money from abroad.
In a widely circulated video, Major-General Tarek al-Hadi Kejab from the Sudanese army said: “The so-called central committee of doctors, should be named the committee of rebels!”
Sudanese doctors’ organisations have been monitoring threats which they say are coming from both sides and the BBC has spoken to doctors who have gone into hiding.
“We know that this is a tactic that is used in wars, for pressure, that is illegal in all international laws. Unfortunately, this has pushed medical staff into a propaganda war – between the RSF and the Sudanese army,” said Dr Mohamed Eisa from the Sudanese American Physicians Association.
Doctors around the world have been calling for an end to the targeting of their colleagues.
At a conference in London last week, Sudan’s Doctors for Human Rights said medical staff had been killed, ambulances targeted and hospitals forced to close their doors.
Dr Ahmed Abbas said: “We’re gathering all the evidence of these transgressions, which are crimes against humanity and war crimes, and this could be presented to international judicial authorities, or national authorities in Sudan.”
The UN estimates that more than 1.3 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of the fighting in Sudan.
After more than six weeks of fighting, the Sudanese military and a potent paramilitary organisation are still engaged in combat.
Per the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of the UN, over a million people have been compelled to leave their homes and relocate within the nation to safer locations.
An additional 320,000 people have fled to Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya, which are nearby nations.
Clashes between rival forces even broke out today in Khartoum, despite a ceasefire being agreed on Monday – albeit a fragile one.
Sporadic fighting continued in several areas and residents reported hearing gunshots and explosions in central Khartoum, as well as areas close to military facilities in Omdurman.
Both sides blamed each other for violating the cease-fire.
Just five days ago, houses were left shaking after the capital was hit by airstrikes and the civil war has led to a collapse in law and order, with looting that, again, both sides have traded blame for.
Violence erupted on April 15 this year after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The situation has worsened an already existing humanitarian crisis and right now, stocks of food, cash, and essentials in the North African nation are rapidly dwindling.
Hopes of restoring the country’s fragile transition to democracy have been completely shattered by the conflict.
At least 863 civilians have already been killed, including at least 190 children, while more than 3,530 people have been wounded, according to the most recent data from the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, which mainly tracks civilian casualties.
It has pushed the country to near collapse, with urban areas in Khartoum and its neighbouring city of Omdurman turning into battlegrounds.
Egypt is hosting the largest number of those who have fled, with at least 132,360 people, followed by Chad with 80,000 and South Sudan with more than 69,000, the agency added.
All but one of Sudan’s 18 provinces has experienced displacement, with Khartoum at the top of the list with about 70% of the total number of displaced people, according to the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix.
The weeklong ceasefire was brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia and was the latest international effort to push for humanitarian aid delivery to the conflict-torn country.
A joint statement from the US and Saudi Arabia yesterday evening warned that neither the Sudanese military nor the Rapid Support Forces observed the short-term ceasefire.
The fighting has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian conditions in Sudan. According to the UN, the number of people who need assistance this year has increased by 57% to reach 24.7 million people – more than half the country’s population.
The international body said it would need £2.1billion ($2.6bn) to provide them with much-needed humanitarian assistance.
Shortly after the civil war broke out, British nationals were desperately trying to escape in terrifying circumstances.
One student who managed to flee Khartoum likened scenes in the city to that of the horror movie The Purge, while another Brit risked being shot to walk four hours to an airstrip for an evacuation flight.
Despite being only 22 years old, Mastiura Ishakh Yousouff has spent the majority of her life in the Darfur region of Sudan. But even for someone who has never known a permanent home, this is unfamiliar territory: a refugee camp in eastern Chad, one of the world’s poorest nations.
After conflict in West Darfur grew more intense, she was compelled to cross the border with just her newborn and the few personal belongings she could fit.
“I’m concerned about everyone who was left behind, especially my mother, who was unable to cross the border because she was in too poor of health to do so. She spoke to CNN at the Gaga Refugee Camp in the Ouadda region of the central African nation. “I keep asking myself how I can get her to Chad,” she said.
Hundreds of people have died in West Darfur, as fighting escalated between the country’s two rival military factions locked in a deadly power struggle. At least 60,000 Sudanese have crossed into Chad since fighting broke out in mid-April, UN figures show.
Even before the fighting intensified, years of political instability meant Sudan had several millions of people internally displaced; the country also hosted 1.13 million refugees from other conflict-ridden countries, including South Sudan, Eritrea and Syria, according to UNHCR data.
The new outbreak of violence forced nearly 850,000 more civilians so far to leave their homes and move elsewhere in Sudan, while more than 250,000 people left the country in search of safety, UNHCR data shows.
Chad is feeling the strain of the displacement on its resources and was already home to 400,000 Sudanese refugees before this latest conflict.
The current surge has humanitarian workers scrambling to provide services to new arrivals, relocate them away from border towns and deliver aid to mushrooming refugee cities in a remote part of a poor nation that has its own security challenges.
Money is tight to take care of all of them but the people keep coming, afraid that they will be killed if they stay in Sudan.
Close to 90% of the new arrivals at the Gaga Camp are women and children, UNHCR, the United Nations’ Refugee Agency, told CNN.
“The young and the men told us to take the children and cross the border for now so that they can stay behind to defend themselves and our property, if necessary,” Yousouff explained.
They may have escaped the conflict back home, but some are so traumatized that even the guns that police and security carry around the camp trigger painful memories, humanitarian workers say. They’re scared of men in military fatigues, a reminder of the horrors they witnessed back home.
CNN traveled to eastern Chad with USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who announced $103 million to support the over 1 million people who have been displaced in Sudan and neighboring countries since the conflict broke out.
It was a full-circle moment for the US official, who is a former journalist who reported from Chad in 2004 as Sudanese civilians fled from the Janjaweed Arab militias who were accused of major human rights violations and atrocities in Darfur.
On this latest trip, she heard harrowing stories from refugees who were forced to cross over into Chad in the face of unprecedented violence.
One group of nearly 200 families left at 3 a.m. as they feared that they would get attacked imminently.
“You talk to them, you feel like you’re in a time warp, because they’re describing Janjaweed coming in with their knives and their machetes, killing people, raping women. We met one woman whose eye had been gouged basically, with somebody just attacking her,” Power told CNN.
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, was a commander of the Janjaweed during the bloody years of the Darfur conflict.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed during the violence two decades ago by Janjaweed fighters who murdered, raped and tortured the people of Darfur in what is widely recognized as a genocide.
Hemedti now leads the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group battling the Sudanese Armed Forces in this latest conflict. Their representatives signed a seven-day humanitarian ceasefire agreement in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend that begins on Monday night local time. But the two sides have violated each of the previous truces they agreed to since they started fighting on April 15.
“Nowhere in the world, is there a humanitarian solution for a political problem. Nowhere in the world, is there a humanitarian fix for generals who are willing to destroy their country in the interests of seizing power, or consolidating power,” Power told CNN.
As she spoke, some children gathered behind her, curious about the scene and likely bored in a newly built camp with no recreational facilities.
Countries that “might be tempted” to support one faction or the other should keep their faces in mind, she said. The ambassador wants the generals isolated and pressured to end the conflict.
Koubra Abdallah, 23, told CNN she left Geneina in West Darfur so suddenly that she got separated from her young son, who got lost in the chaos.
“My brother is still back there, I heard he was injured. I was forced to come to Chad to seek safety,” she said as she sorted vegetables for lunch in the Gaga camp. She stressed that she wouldn’t go back to Sudan except to bring her son and brother back to safety.
“There has been too much insecurity for too long,” she said in a mixture of the Masalit and Arabic dialects spoken in western Sudan.
Like Yousouff, many of the refugees were already internally displaced thanks to decades of conflict in Sudan. “Some of them have been in a cycle of displacement,” explained Patrice Ahouansou, the Deputy Representative in Chad of the UNHCR.
“So they were living in Internally Displaced Persons camps in Sudan and have now crossed into Chad to seek asylum.”
Chadian law requires refugees to be housed at reasonable distances from border towns, the UN official says. So they are moved to camps like Gaga further away from the border to begin the difficult process of figuring out the rest of their lives.
About 1,000 people had been relocated when CNN visited. Tens of small one-room iron sheet structures wrapped in UNHCR logos had sprung out of the desert.
The women and their toddlers sat or slept under trees to escape the 45 degree heat while some children played near a tap as water flowed. It’s basic, no piped water or power in the dwellings that host one family each, but they feel safe in this refugee city.
The people crossing into Chad are the poorest, most vulnerable victims of Sudan’s instability.
They’re mostly farmers, village folk with simple lives who yearn for the chance to build a safe future. Unlike the thousands who have been evacuated through Port Sudan or flown out of the country, they don’t have dual nationalities or foreign visas. “I’ll go back for any leader that brings peace to Sudan,” one of the men told USAID’s Power.
They don’t care about which general wins in this power struggle.
“What’s sad is that while there was hope for a civilian-led transitional government, and while there was hope for a time that the military and these militia would recede, for many of these individuals, it’s just proof that the militia will never go away in their minds,” she told CNN.
Reports from Sudan indicate that a military fighter plane has crashed near the capital city of Khartoum in Omdurman.
The cause of the crash, whether it was due to being shot down or a technical failure, remains unclear.
Videos circulating on social media show the aircraft engulfed in flames before plummeting to the ground. Additionally, separate footage captures two pilots descending from the plane using parachutes.
Military plane crashed in Sudan
The aircraft crashed near the city of Omdurman near the capital Khartoum, Al Hadath reported. A video appeared on social networks of how 2 pilots, who managed to eject, descend by parachute. pic.twitter.com/DfuwsXWrHx
In another video, an injured man dressed in army uniform appears disoriented and is seen in the back of a car, seemingly held captive by armed individuals who are celebrating.
Local residents in the area have reported intense fighting, which has occurred on the second day of a ceasefire intended to reduce clashes, although it has not fully ceased the hostilities.
The ceasefire aims to facilitate the delivery of much-needed aid to the region, but its effectiveness has been limited thus far. Humanitarian workers are awaiting security permits and guarantees to commence their operations.
In the capital and two neighboring cities, the most recent ceasefire intended to put an end to Sudan’s destructive conflict appeared to be mainly holding.
For the first time in more than five weeks there appears to be relative peace, residents say.
But there have been some breaches of the truce in Khartoum, and across the River Nile in Bahri and Omdurman.
The military carried out air strikes minutes after the ceasefire came into force on Monday evening.
The air strikes, targeting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have since stopped.
However, sporadic artillery fire could still be heard in Khartoum, residents told AFP news agency.
The RSF controls much of Khartoum and the two other cities that make up Sudan’s greater capital.
The situation is also relatively calm in El Geneina and Nyala, two cities in the Darfur region which have also been badly affected by the conflict, AFP quotes witnesses as saying.
The violence began on 15 April, triggered by a power struggle between the leaders of the regular army and the RSF.
The US and Saudi Arabia have been brokering talks aimed at ending the conflict, which has forced more than one million people from their homes and has led to a breakdown in health services.
Previous ceasefires collapsed, but the US said the latest one was different as it included a monitoring mechanism.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the monitoring would be “remote”, but did not give details.
“If the ceasefire is violated, we’ll know, and we will hold violators accountable through our sanctions and other tools at our disposal,” he added in a video message to the Sudanese people.
RSF commander Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – better known as Hemedti – issued a belligerent message just hours before the agreement was due to become effective.
He was recorded in an audio message saying his troops would not retreat “until we end this coup”.
Khartoum resident Moe Faddoul told the BBC that minutes into the ceasefire there were two heavy air strikes west of the city, where the military’s main airbase is.
“The house shook where I’m staying,” he said.
There were also skirmishes, but the fighting had since stopped, Mr Faddoul added.
He described the city as “almost a ghost town”.
Most residents had fled, no cars were on roads and only a few people were walking to look for basic necessities, Mr Faddoul said.
The army and RSF agreed to the ceasefire lasting for seven days, raising hopes that aid workers would be able to deliver much-needed food and medical supplies.
The US has announced $245m (£197m) in humanitarian aid to Sudan and neighbouring states, which are bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis triggered by the conflict.
A temporary ceasefire in Sudan has been agreed as fighting between two warring factions entered its sixth week.
Previous truce attempts between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have tended to collapse within minutes of beginning.
But the new deal will be enforced by a “ceasefire monitoring mechanism,” according to a US-Saudi statement.
As part of the seven-day humanitarian ceasefire, Sudanese officials have agreed to restore essential services.
Fighting between the two sides has plunged the country into chaos since it began last month, with more than a million people thought to have been displaced.
Qatar said on Saturday that its embassy in the capital Khartoum had been ransacked by “irregular armed forces”, and it called for the perpetrators to be held accountable for the “heinous act”.
Other embassies, including Jordan’s, have also been previously ransacked, along with aid warehouses of the UN.
Stocks of food, money and essentials have fast declined and aid groups repeatedly complained of being unable to provide sufficient assistance in Khartoum, where much of the violence has taken place.
Both the regular army and the RSF have been urged to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid, restore essential services and withdraw forces from hospitals.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, who sponsored the peace talks in Jeddah, said the ceasefire would come into effect on Monday evening.
In a statement , the US State Department acknowledged previous failed attempts at brokering peace in Sudan, but said there was a key difference this time.
“Unlike previous ceasefires, the agreement reached in Jeddah was signed by the parties and will be supported by a US-Saudi and international-supported ceasefire monitoring mechanism,” it said, without giving more detail.
Taking to Twitter, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken added: “It is past time to silence the guns and allow unhindered humanitarian access.
“I implore both sides to uphold this agreement – the eyes of the world are watching.”
The war broke out in Khartoum on 15 April following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.
There was also a power struggle between Sudan’s regular army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the RSF.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting and the UN has warned of a worsening situation in Africa’s third-largest country, where a huge number of people already relied on aid before the conflict.
Last night, airstrikes hit Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as the civil conflict, which has trapped and displaced millions of people, enters its sixth week.
Law and order have collapsed as a result of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, and both sides have been accused of looting.
In the country of North Africa, supplies of food, money, and necessities are rapidly running out.
Eyewitnesses in southern Omdurman and northern Bahri, the two cities that are located across the Nile from Khartoum and make up Sudan’s “triple capital,” have reported airstrikes on Saturday.
Over a million people have been displaced since fighting between the army and paramilitary groups broke out in April (Picture: EPA)
Some of the strikes took place near the state broadcaster in Omdurman, the eyewitnesses said.
Eyewitnesses in Khartoum said that the situation was relatively calm, although sporadic gunshots could be heard.
The conflict, which began on April 15, has displaced almost 1.1 million people internally and into neighbouring countries.
Some 705 people have been killed and at least 5,287 injured, according to the World Health Organization.
Talks sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia in Jeddah have not been fruitful, and the two sides have accused each other of violating multiple ceasefire agreements.
‘We faced heavy artillery fire early this morning, the whole house was shaking,’ said Sanaa Hassan, a 33-year-old living in the al-Salha neighbourhood of Omdurman.
‘It was terrifying, everyone was lying under their beds. What’s happening is a nightmare,’ she said.
The RSF is embedded in residential districts, drawing almost continual air strikes by the regular armed forces.
In recent days ground fighting has flared once again in the Darfur region, in the cities of Nyala and Zalenjei.
Both sides blamed each other in statements late on Friday for sparking the fighting in Nyala, one of the country’s largest cities, which had for weeks been relatively calm due to a locally-brokered truce.
A local activist told reporters there were sporadic gun clashes near the city’s main market close to army headquarters on Saturday morning. Almost 30 people have died in the two previous days of fighting, according to activists.
The war broke out in Khartoum after disputes over plans for the RSF to be integrated into the army and over the future chain of command under an internationally backed deal to shift Sudan towards democracy following decades of conflict-ridden autocracy.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced late on Friday more than $100 million to Sudan and countries receiving fleeing Sudanese, including much-needed food and medical aid.
‘It’s hard to convey the extent of the suffering occurring right now in Sudan,’ said agency head Samantha Power.
The United Nations is currently in urgent need of approximately $3 billion (£2.4 billion) to support humanitarian operations in Sudan.
The organization anticipates that over a million individuals will be forced to flee the country due to the ongoing conflict between the national army and rival militia groups.
Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN’s humanitarian affairs coordinator, has stated that more than half of Sudan’s population, which amounts to 25 million people, require assistance and protection.
This staggering figure represents the highest number of individuals in need ever recorded in the country.
The conflict, which erupted a month ago, has led to the looting of supplies and attacks on aid workers. These obstacles further exacerbate the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan.
The acting interior minister and police chief, Anan Hamed Mohammed Omar, has been fired by Sudan’s military leader, Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
In a statement, Gen Burhan named Khalid Hassan Muhyi al-Din as the new general director of police.
No reason was given for the sacking but Gen Burhan had earlier dismissed, in similar decrees, the governor of the central bank and two foreign ministry diplomats.
The police have been inactive in conflict-hit areas, including the capital, Khartoum, since the fighting erupted on 15 April. As a result, acts of lawlessness, including looting and robbery, have been widely reported in these areas.
A month of fighting between Sudan’s rival military factions appears to have no end in sight despite much-touted truce talks brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia.
The bank accounts of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group and its affiliated companies have been frozen by Sudan’s army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
This happened due to a directive issued by chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Sunday. He also retired some four military officers affiliated to the RSF.
Among the victims is Brig Gen Omar Hamdan Ahmed, a relative of RSF commander Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, and who is currently heading a delegation of the paramilitary force for peace talks with Sudan’s army’s in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Gen Burhan also sacked central bank governor Hussain Yahia Jankol and appointed Borai El Siddiq in his place.
He did not provide a reason for Mr Jankol’s sacking.
Meanwhile, state-run channel Sudan TV resumed its satellite broadcasts on Sunday, a week after going off air.
The station’s transmission has been cut several times since the fighting between the army and the RSF began on 15 April.
It continues to give prominence to the army’s claims against the RSF.
Shaden Gardood, one of Sudan‘s most well-known vocalists, was killed in crossfire in the Sudanese capital of Omdurman.
On Friday, Gardood lost her life during fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The 37-year-old’s passing occurred just one day after the warring sides agreed to a truce to lessen suffering among civilians.
In April, fighting broke out in Sudan as a result of a brutal power struggle among the military’s top brass.
Gardood resided in the al-Hashmab neighborhood, where the RSF has become more visible lately.
Her niece, Heraa Hassan Mohammed, confirmed her death on Facebook and said: “She was like a mother and a beloved to me, we were just chatting, may God give her mercy.”
She then wrote the Islamic phrase used when a person dies: “inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un”.
In a video which circulated on social media, Gardood said she was trying to hide from the shelling and asked her son to close the windows.
She could be heard saying: “Go away from the doors and the windows… in the name of Allah, we are going to die ready wearing our full clothes… you should wear this, we will die in a better shape.”
Gardood regularly made live videos on Facebook talking about the clashes and shelling in her neighbourhood, and she wrote intensively against the war.
In one of her last posts on Facebook, she said: “We have been trapped in our houses for 25 days… we are hungry and living in an enormous fear, but are full of ethics and values,” referring to looting across Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
Image caption,Shaden Gardood was a prominent singer in Sudan
Gardood lived near the national television and radio building, which has been a battlefield from the first day of the war.
The RSF was guarding the building and they came under constant shelling by fighter jets, with on-the-ground clashes between the two forces.
One resident living in the same neighbourhood as Gardood said: “Last night, the clashes were violent and intense, which lasted for long hours with fighter jets hovering over all night last night.
“But what I observed is that the clashes were a bit less immediately after Shaden was injured, then we continued to hear the sound from afar.”
The resident said that Gardood later died of her wounds.
Gardood is survived by her 15-year-old son, Hamoudy, and her mother and sister.
The fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF has been taking place in Khartoum for almost four weeks.
The conflict erupted in mid-April, when the RSF refused to be integrated into Sudan’s army under a planned transition to civilian rule.
More than 600 civilians have died and more than 4,000 injured, closing down about 80% of the hospitals with severe food, water and electricity shortages.
Before moving to Khartoum with her family, Gardood was originally from the war-torn South Kordofan state.
She performed as a hakama, traditional poets in western Sudan who exhort men to go into battle, in order to promote peace and security in her area as well as the culture of her marginalized community, al-Bagara, in South Kordofan.
In addition to singing, Gardood studied the al-Bagara Melodies and delivered papers on the Hakamas’ legacy both in the past and the present.
A number of public figures were killed in Khartoum in the past few weeks, among them Sudan’s first professional actress, Asia Abdelmajid, who died in crossfire at the age of 80.
Former footballer Fozi el-Mardi, 72, was also killed only a few days after the death of his daughter who was killed in a crossfire in Omdurman.
Four days after the start of the war, constant ceasefires were announced under the request of regional powers, but none were upheld.
The clashes have not stopped as the fighter jets continue hovering over the entire city.
On the 26th day of the conflict between military and paramilitaries in Sudan, powerful explosions rumble across Khartoum early on Wednesday. The two camps’ negotiators have not yet agreed upon a humanitarian corridor.
“We were awakened by explosions and heavy artillery fire,” a resident of Omdurman, a city on the outskirts of Khartoum, told AFP.
Overnight, other witnesses in different neighbourhoods of Khartoum reported two huge explosions heard across the capital, which has a population of five million. Residents of El-Obeid, 350 km west of the capital, also reported fighting and explosions in their town.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane ‘s army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo ‘s dreaded paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sent negotiators to Saudi Arabia on Saturday for only ” technical” ” pre-discussions ” on corridors secured for humanitarian aid.
But so far no announcement has been made in Jeddah, on the Red Sea, where the talks are taking place.
The head of the UN for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, who arrived in Jeddah on Sunday, has already left. He proposed to the two parties to commit to “guarantee the passage of humanitarian aid” via a declaration of principle, according to the UN.
Since its beginning on April 15, the conflict has left more than 750 dead and 5,000 injured.
Nearly 150,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the UN, while the number of internally displaced people in Sudan now exceeds 700,000, more than double the 340,000 counted a week ago.
Those who remain in Khartoum live barricaded in their homes. Without water or power, with almost dry food stocks and less and less cash, they survive in the scorching heat thanks to networks of solidarity between neighbours and relatives.
Before going to war, Generals Burhane and Daglo had together ousted civilians from power with their 2021 putsch. Two years earlier, the army had agreed under street pressure to dismiss dictator Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for 30 years.
Many creatures in Sudan’s capital zoo, including an elderly crocodile, parrots, and enormous reptiles, are thought to have perished as a result of the area becoming inaccessible due to street fighting between opposing groups in the nation.
At least 100 animals, all kept in enclosures, will have gone more than three weeks without water or food, said Sara Abdalla, chief zoologist at the Sudan Museum of Natural History.
Millions of people in Sudan have suffered from shortages of food, water and medicine after the conflict disrupted the most basic services. But as the sound of explosions echoes through the capital Khartoum, Sara Abdalla is consumed with worry about the animals she cares for, especially those that are increasingly rare in their natural habitat in Sudan.
“I feel a lot of misery and sadness, as well as helplessness,” she said in a telephone interview from Khartoum. “I guess we lost the birds and the mammals .”
The zoo is home to species such as an African gray parrot, vervet monkey, giant lizards called Nile monitor lizards, desert tortoise, horned viper, and Nubian spitting cobra. Before the fighting, all these animals were fed twice a day. But the last time they received their meals and, for some, their medicine, was on April 14, the day before the fighting broke out, according to Mr Abdalla.
The conflict, which has ended months of tensions between rival Sudanese generals, pits the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhane, head of the ruling Sovereign Council, against powerful rapid support paramilitary forces. The Rapid Support Forces (FSR) are commanded by Burhane’s deputy in the council, General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo . Sara Abdalla argues that neither had heeded calls to allow access to the zoo.
The conflict turned much of Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battlefield, with both sides using heavy weaponry, including artillery and airstrikes, inside urban areas. Urban fighting has severely damaged infrastructure and property and puts civilians at great risk as they attempt to move through city streets.
Residents fleeing the capital said they saw bodies littering sidewalks and central plazas, especially in areas not far from the museum. According to the Sudanese doctors’ Union, around 500 civilians have been killed in the fighting so far, but the actual death toll is believed to be higher.
The zoo, which is located within the grounds of the University of Khartoum, is one of the oldest in Sudan. It was established about a century ago as part of Gordon Memorial College, an educational institution built in the early 1900s when Sudan was part of the British Empire. It was annexed to the University of Khartoum two years after Sudan’s independence in 1956.
Its current location is close to the army headquarters, where fighting was intense, preventing access to the museum.
Sara Abdalla, who teaches zoology at the University of Khartoum, started working at the museum in 2006 and was appointed director of the establishment in 2020. She had dreamed of this position since she had visited the museum as a child. Now locked in her home in south Khartoum with her husband and their two children – Yara, 9, and Mohamed, 4 – she worries about the animals who have already survived years of turmoil, economic collapse and shutdown due to pandemic.
As war intensifies in Sudan, the price of goods and services has skyrocketed.
According to the United Nations humanitarian agency, the price of basic commodities such as fuel, food staples, and water has gone up by 60 percent or more due to supply challenges resulting from the clashes in Khartoum and other parts of Sudan.
This is a new setback to Sudan’s stagnant economy. Shortages of main goods such as flour and vegetables have been reported in the capital along with unprecedented price hikes.
Khartoum is the business hub for most industries and services. Factories are located in parts of the city where intense fighting is happening. Some of them have been looted.
Sudan is an important exporter of gum Arabic, gold, sesame, peanuts, and livestock. But the economy has been held back by decades of sanctions and international isolation, as well as mismanagement and corruption.
People have been struggling with years of spiking inflation and sharp currency devaluations. The situation worsened after the 2021 military coup when international financial institutions halted Sudan’s aid programs.
The ongoing conflict has closed out trade flows to and from Sudan and the main ports have halted operations until further notice.
The country’s overwhelmed economy is expected to deteriorate further if the fighting continues.
Despite several ceasefires declared by Sudan’s conflicting parties, tensions and some deadly fighting continue to rage in the capital Khartoum and other areas.
Sudan’s health ministry stopped updating the number of casualties on May 2, when the death toll stood at 550 with 4,926 people injured.
In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Sudanese are fleeing to neighboring countries. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a total of 123,110 refugees have fled to South Sudan, Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic since the conflict erupted in mid-April.
The UN agency projected the number could rise to 860,000 in the next six months.
The number of people displaced within Sudan by violence between opposing military factions has more than doubled in the last week to over 700,000 people, according to a UN organization.
Despite ceasefire talks being held in Saudi Arabia, the increase in displacements has generated concerns about an escalation of bloodshed.
Air raids and ground clashes continue in Khartoum, the capital.
Entire neighborhoods have been deserted as residents evacuate their houses.
Khartoum has a population of 5.4 million people, but the once-peaceful city has been ravaged by the fighting that began on 15 April.
One resident told the BBC that she heard gunfire again on Tuesday from many directions, and the distant sound of air strikes.
Others said the military’s fighter jets were flying all over south Khartoum and heavy battles were raging in the middle-class neighbourhood al-Sahafa, not too far from the international airport, which is shut.
The fighting is between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led respectively by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.
More than 600 people have now been killed and 5,000 wounded in the conflict.
Heavy fighting has also been reported in two cities adjacent to Khartoum – Bahri and Omdurman – and the western region of Darfur.
“Many IDPs [internally displaced people] are sheltering with relatives, while others are gathering in schools, mosques and public buildings,” said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Mr Dillon said people were running out of cash, and basic supplies like fuel.
“The ATMs aren’t working and the banking system is not functioning. Fuel is difficult to come by and expensive,” he added.
Last week, the UN said that about 100,000 people had fled to neighbouring states, and the number could reach more than 800,000 if fighting does not stop.
Representatives of the the army and RSF have been holding their first face-to-face talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah in a bid to negotiate a ceasefire.
Speaking to Egypt-based Al-Qahera News on Monday, Gen Burhan said that a “permanent ceasefire” needed to come into effect in Khartoum before a political settlement could be negotiated with the RSF.
“We can discuss a settlement after we reach a permanent ceasefire in Khartoum,” he said.
RSF are in control of much of the capital, with the military’s air strikes aimed at weakening its positions and to prevent it from getting reinforcements.
Esraa Hesbalrasoul took her preterm twins from an incubator and fled in a panic when a maternity facility in the capital of Sudan came under fire.
In the chaos, only one of the infants survived.
Hesbalrasoul now tends to her baby in a small hospital in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman that for weeks has struggled to weather the near-ceaseless fighting.
Numerous medical facilities have been shelled in the fighting that broke out on April 15 between rival generals and the forces they command.
The battles have left only 16 percent of hospitals in Khartoum fully functional, according to the United Nations, putting countless lives at risk.
But the small Al-Nada hospital in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman remains a lifesaver, keeping its doors open to offer vital health care despite the mounting odds.
When strikes shook the ground on April 20 around the facility initially caring for the twins, “we were told we had to evacuate everyone right away”, Hesbalrasoul told AFP.
“There were no ambulances available so we had to transport our babies as best we could,” she said.
“But one of them died because of the lack of oxygen.”
Her tragedy is hardly an isolated one.
The UN estimates that there are “219,000 pregnant women in Khartoum, including 24,000 women expected to give birth in the coming weeks”.
Al-Nada is one of the rare facilities they can turn to.
Its director, Mohammed Fattah al-Rahman, in particular credits a generous donation from the Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA-USA), which has allowed it to keep running.
With this money, “we have been able to deliver 500 births, naturally and through caesarian sections, and to admit 80 children”, he told AFP, surrounded by premature babies in incubators.
But the war is never far from the dimly-lit facility. Sounds of gunfire and blasts can often be heard echoing in the distance.
There is no air conditioning, only overhead fans that attempt to relieve the heat which often reaches up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) even before the blazing peak of summer.
As the war rages, killing hundreds and injuring thousands so far, much of Sudan’s meagre medical resources have been diverted to tending the war-wounded with urgent care.
“There have been no obstetrics or paediatric services since the beginning of the conflict,” Rahman says.
That meant that Sudanese couple Fatima and her husband Jaber could find no facilities to treat their young son for meningitis, until they arrived at Al-Nada, which offers paediatric care as well as maternity facilities.
– Fear of ‘collapse’ –
Even before the war broke out, mothers and children faced grave dangers in Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries.
Almost three out of every thousand women die in childbirth in Sudan, eight times higher than the figure in neighbouring Egypt, according to the UN children’s fund, UNICEF.
It says 56 out of every 1,000 Sudanese children die before reaching the age of five.
Last year, the UN estimated that one in three Sudanese needed to walk more than an hour to get medical care.
Today, the small team that keeps the Al-Nada hospital going fears conditions will soon force them to stop their essential work.
“Our stocks of medicines are starting to dwindle,” said Alaa Ahmed, a pharmacist at the hospital. “If it goes on like this, everything will collapse.”
The prospect of getting more supplies from the government warehouse on the other side of the Nile River is not only unlikely — it is closed and unaccessible — but possibly deadly while combat rages.
As a result, Ahmed laments, “a lot of people ask me for medicine but unfortunately I can’t give it to them”.
A hospital that has been impacted by war in Sudan’s Darfur area lost power, and a 27-year-old electrical engineering student died while attempting to fix it.
Muhammedin Fadul Idris Wadi, known to his friends as Ala Danedn, was electrocuted at Sayed al-Shahada Health Centre in Fasher city on Thursday.
He was part of a group volunteers trying to keep the clinic going amid fierce clashes and looting.
“He was known for his smile, even in the time of the war,” his friend said.
“He gave his life as a servant of the people of Fasher,” Ahmed Ishaq, who studied with him at the University of Fasher, told the BBC.
Ala Danedn was admired for his tireless work and selfless community initiatives, he said.
A tag line accompanying his profile photo on Facebook reads: “Don’t wait for the opportunity, create it.”
Since the conflict broke out in Sudan between rival military factions on 15 April, his group of volunteers, called the Youth of the al-Thawra Initiative, have been focused on assisting medics in Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
All medical facilities in Fasher, except South Hospital – a repurposed maternity clinic – had to close because of their proximity to the fighting, or the inability of staff to reach them.
“I saw him working with all effort to clean and receive the wounded in South Hospital throughout the first week,” said Mr Ishaq.
“He kept us buoyant psychologically in difficult times with his kind words – and he worked like a bee.”
The volunteers then turned their attention to the Sayed al-Shahada Health Centre, which had been damaged and looted and subsequently abandoned by staff.
They felt it was important to try and reopen it given its proximity to vulnerable neighbourhoods in the south of the city including Abu Shanbat and Zam Zam camps, which are home to communities who fled their villages in the ethnic violence that ravaged Darfur 20 years ago.
His group raised money to organise for the facility to be refurbished and buy food, medicine and other medical supplies.
“He was good at networking with pharmacies and medical supplies companies,” Mr Ishaq said of his friend’s dedication to see the health centre reopen.
Image caption,The health centre managed to open again last week thanks to the volunteers
The clinic started operating again last Monday with the help of 25 volunteer medics and 80 community volunteers, but was still facing difficulties.
With many places cut off from electricity – or having an erratic supply – Ala Danedn had been attending to an electric problem at the health centre on Thursday evening.
His friend said he collapsed after receiving a strong shock and was transferred to South Hospital.
But after 48 hours volunteers there were unable to save him and the undergraduate died on Saturday night.
“We had promised one another that after the war ended that we would meet once again in the city centre, replacing the sounds of bullets with melody, music and joy – sessions he loved,” Mr Ishaq said.
“But Ala Danedn is gone and we owe it to him to keep our covenant as volunteers to make life better for our people.”
The fighting that erupted three weeks ago is devastating the country – hundreds of civilians have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
The army and the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are continuing to fight for control of key areas of the capital, Khartoum, despite attempts to get the two sides to talk.
Around seven million people are trapped in their homes in Khartoum, unable to get basic supplies including food.
Envoys from the army and RSF have started talks about a short-term ceasefire in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, according to Saudi officials. However, several previous ceasefires agreements have failed to halt the fighting.
Saudi Arabia has asserted that it anticipates a meaningful truce to result from talks between the warring military factions in Sudan that started on Saturday in Jeddah.
In the first confirmation that the meetings had started, the Saudi foreign ministry said both sides recognised the need to ease the suffering of the Sudanese people.
It said, as well as stopping the fighting, the aim was to ensure the delivery of relief supplies and the restoration of essential services.
There’s been no comment from the Sudanese army or its rivals from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on the talks.
The meetings in Jeddah are the first since the fighting broke out more than three weeks ago.
Saudi Arabia is to host the first face-to-face talks on Saturday between the warring armies in Sudan, after several ceasefires broke down.
A joint US-Saudi statement welcomed the start of “pre-negotiation talks” in Jeddah between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). On Friday reports spoke of continuing clashes in Khartoum.
The Sudanese army says the talks aim to address humanitarian issues.
There has been no official RSF comment.
The army confirmed it had sent envoys to Jeddah to engage in the talks, which the UN and aid agencies have been pressing for, faced with a dire humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
Nearly three weeks of heavy fighting have killed hundreds of people and displaced nearly 450,000 civilians. Of that total, the International Organization for Migration says, more than 115,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
Sudan’s army commander Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – the de facto Sudanese president – is engaged in a bitter power struggle with RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.
The statement from the US and Saudi governments said they “urge both parties to take in consideration the interests of the Sudanese nation and its people and actively engage in the talks towards a ceasefire and end to the conflict, which will spare the Sudanese people’s suffering and ensure the availability of humanitarian aid to affected areas”.
The joint statement also expressed hope for “an expanded negotiation process that should include engagement with all Sudanese parties”.
A Unicef spokesman, James Elder, said the conflict’s first 11 days alone had killed an estimated 190 children and wounded 1,700 – and those figures were just from health facilities in Khartoum and Darfur. “The reality is likely to be much worse,” he said.
The intensity of the fighting has prevented much-needed aid deliveries getting through.
So far Gen Burhan and Hemedti, who led an Arab militia in the brutal Darfur conflict, have shown little readiness to reach a peace settlement.
The ambassador of Sudan to Nigeria, Muhammad Yusuf, has begged with Nigerians leaving the nation to think about going back when circumstances calm down
Speaking on Thursday after a batch of Nigerians returned from the country, Mr Yusuf urged them to resume their studies and reopen their businesses after the fighting between the army and the paramilitary forces ends.
He asked them to consider Sudan as their second country, expressing optimism that the fighting would be controlled soon.
“I’m very sorry for what is happening there but at the same time I’m very happy to have these evacuees coming from Sudan safe, no life is lost,” he was quoted by the Cable newspaper as saying.
Another batch of Nigerians from Sudan is expected to arrive on Friday.
On Wednesday, amidst fighting between two rival factions that have ravaged Sudan and claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, Sudanese actress Asia Abdel-Majid was slain in the crossfire.
The 80-year-old was killed after shells hit her home in Bahri, north of the capital, in fighting between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army, her nephew told CNN.
It is unclear if it was the RSF or the army that fired the shot that killed Abdel-Majid.
Failed negotiations between Sudanese army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan RSF and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo over a disputed power-sharing arrangement exploded into violence in mid-April, sparking a mass exodus of refugees from the country and resulting in the deaths of at least 528 people.
Previous ceasefires and promises of peace talks between both leaders have failed to curb the ongoing conflict with eyewitness accounts of fighting in Khartoum reported on Thursday, despite a seven-day truce announced just days earlier.
Sudanese actress Asia Abdel-Majid.From Nur Ihlas/Facebook
Abdel-Majid was buried in the grounds of a kindergarten where she worked, her nephew said, adding that it was unsafe to take her to a cemetery.
The kindergarten is next door to Abdel-Majid’s home, where she was alone when the shelling took place.
She was considered a pioneer of theater in Sudan and the country’s first professional stage actress, establishing a kindergarten in Bahri and becoming a teacher when she retired.
‘Torn apart’
Smoke rises over Khartoum during clashes between the RSF and the Sudanese army on April 17, 2023. Eyewitnesses say the violence in the capital has intensified, despite repeated ceasefires.Reuters
Witnesses said the Sudanese army and the RSF are fighting using light and heavy weapons in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace – the most violent since the start of the clashes – as the conflict nears its fourth week.
At least 190 children have been killed and another 1,700 injured in the country since the violence broke out last month, according to reports received by UNICEF, the UN body’s Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement on Thursday. Due to the intensity of the violence, UNICEF was unable to confirm the estimates, she added.
Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned on Wednesday that people trapped in battlefields are running out of water and food.
“Families across Sudan, including those of our colleagues, are being torn apart, and having to choose between remaining trapped in the battlefield, or risking their lives to flee or reach an overcrowded hospital,” Egeland said in a statement.
“They are running out of everything, including water, food, electricity, fuel, and cash. We need the international community to put as much effort into secure humanitarian access, regardless of ceasefire and in providing aid to millions of people as they have in evacuating their own citizens,” he added.
The violence has triggered a mass exodus of refugees from Sudan, with the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) on Thursday warning that $445 million is needed to help the 860,000 refugees and returnees who could escape the country by October.
According to a UNHCR statement, the plan was designed by “134 partners, including UN agencies, national and international NGOS and civil society groups” and includes a contingency strategy for new arrivals (refugees, returning refugees and others) to neighbouring countries.”
American trapped in Sudan is desperate to escape amid deadly military clashes
At the same time, hundreds of evacuees arrived from Sudan in Nigeria on Wednesday after being held up for days at the Egyptian border for days, as reports over the chaotic border response to the uptick in evacuees continue.
The first contingent of 376 Nigerians were flown home in a military aircraft and a local carrier and arrived in the capital Abuja shortly before midnight, according to the Nigerians In Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM).
Last week, more than 7,000 Nigerian nationals, mostly students fleeing the Sudan conflict had been left stranded at the Egyptian border due to the unavailability of visas, NIDCOM said while appealing to Egyptian authorities “to kindly allow the already traumatized travellers to transit to their final destinations.”
The warring parties in Sudan have agreed to a seven-day truce starting May 4, in a phone conversation with South Sudan‘s President Salva Kiir, the foreign ministry in Juba said Tuesday, raising hopes of an end to weeks of bloodshed.
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, “have agreed in principle for a seven-day truce from May 4th to 11th,” the ministry said in a statement.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands wounded in the fighting as air strikes and artillery exchanges have pounded swathes of greater Khartoum, sparking the exodus of thousands of Sudanese to neighbouring countries.
The two sides have also agreed “to name their representatives to peace talks to be held at any venue of their choice”, the statement from Juba said.
Kiir was speaking to Burhan and Daglo as part of an initiative by the East African regional bloc IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development), which has been pushing for an end to the fighting, echoing calls by the African Union and the international community.
Sudan’s rival military forces have accused each other of violating ceasefire as the deadly conflict rumbled on for several weeks despite warnings of a slide towards civil war.
Both sides said a formal ceasefire agreement that was due to expire at midnight would be extended for a further 72 hours. The army said it hoped what it called the “rebels” would abide by the deal but it believed they had intended to keep up attacks. The parties have kept fighting through a series of ceasefires over the past week.
