The agreed ceasefire between the opposing sides in Sudan was supposed to last a week but it has not lasted even an hour. There are already six unfulfilled truces while the possibility of a short-term peace agreement fades behind the smoke from the shots. And the dynamics are the same as in recent weeks: RSF position their troops in residential areas, provoking artillery and air strikes by a regular army whose weapons do not have the necessary technology to be precise and avoid the death of civilians. Civilians die and the RSF take advantage of their blood to write paragraphs accusing the regular army of targeting civilians. The RSF call themselves “saviors of children, women and the elderly” while the regular army blames its enemies for using human shields.
The civilian population in Khartoum is reluctant to participate in the fighting, although it is clear that the loss of innocent lives threatens to radicalize the opinions of citizens towards one side or the other. Sudan has become like this on Groundhog Day: Generals Al Burhan and Hemedti They repeat in their communiqués their intention to open humanitarian corridors while the clashes between their troops close off any possibility of escape.
The few foods that the World Food Program has managed to introduce are affected by a difficult situation where basic necessities have become almost inaccessible to the civilian population, with some prices rising by 130%. UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq announced Thursday that 17,000 tons of the 80,000 introduced into Sudan have been looted by a desperate population. The humanitarian catastrophe caused by the lack of food that has been predicted for weeks is beginning to take shape with events like these, which have been recorded both in Khartoum and Western Darfur, among others.
The RSF, doing their best?
The Khartoum map stretches and evolves. Those loyal to Hemedti claim to control 90% of the three cities that make up Khartoum, and although this data would not be entirely correct, it would be true that they own a majority of the capital with respect to the regular army. Another region of great interest to the warring parties is Darfur, which is still largely in the hands of the RSF as it was their stronghold before the start of the war. UN sources have conveyed to LA RAZÓN their fears that the fighting will intensify soon in Port Sudan due to its importance as an access point to the Red Sea. The high number of refugees concentrated in the port city would mean chaos with catastrophic consequences.
Regarding the figures provided by the African Center for Strategic Studies, the numbers have continued to grow since the beginning of the week: 42,000 people have arrived in Egypt from Sudan, 8,900 from Ethiopia, 30,000 to Chad, 27,200 to South Sudan and 6,000 to the Central African Republic. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have had to flee their homes since the start of the fighting and more than 100,000 are today seeking a way to cross one of the borders that surround the country. It should be remembered that many of those who cross the borders of CAR, Ethiopia or South Sudan are nationals of those countries who left their places of origin in previous years to flee the conflicts that affect their nations. They fled from the war to land in another warresign themselves and return to the war that drove them from their homes in the first place.