Staff Writer
On Sunday, Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, was shaken by fierce fighting between the armies of opposing generals while disease and famine threatened the growing number of displaced people.
Residents of Khartoum claimed that jets and “violent fighting” between the paramilitary Rapid Support soldiers (RSF) and soldiers loyal to army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan woke them up.
Witnesses told AFP that the RSF was attacking a police station and the state television headquarters in the northwest of the capital, claiming they had shot down an army MiG aircraft.
Others reported seeing “scores of RSF vehicles” traveling in the general direction of “the Armoured Corps” in the center of Khartoum.
According to the International Organization for Migration, since April 15, there have been over 3,000 fatalities and 2.2 million internal displacements as a result of the conflict between Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
In a statement outlining the difficulties faced by displaced Sudanese trapped in nine camps in the bordering South Sudanese province of White Nile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the situation as “grave.”
In addition to Khartoum, the western region of Darfur has seen the most intense combat, where locals, the United Nations, the United States, and others allege that RSF and affiliated Arab militias have targeted and killed civilians based solely on their ethnicity.
As the World Health Organization reports that around two-thirds of healthcare facilities in combat-affected areas are “out of service,” the death toll is likely significantly higher than what has been officially documented.
Bodies are left to fester in the streets of Khartoum and Darfur because many injured people are unable to get to hospitals.
According to the UN, a record 25 million people in Sudan require protection and humanitarian assistance.
According to MSF, “hundreds of thousands of people,” the majority of whom are women and children, populate camps that extend from the southern suburbs of Khartoum all the way to the South Sudanese border.
Measles infections are suspected, and child malnutrition has elevated to the level of a serious health emergency.
According to MSF, 223 children with probable measles were treated between June 6 and June 7, 72 were hospitalized, and 13 people died.
The war has destroyed the nation’s already flimsy infrastructure, leaving inhabitants without access to electricity or water during the stifling summer heat.
Numerous cease-fires, including some that were reached through negotiation between the US and Saudi Arabia, have fallen apart.
Even after the warring parties unilaterally declared separate cease-fires for the recently passed Eid al-Adha holiday, fighting persisted.
A UN representative has issued a warning about potential new “crimes against humanity” in the ongoing conflict in Darfur.
A government agency in charge of keeping track of such crimes claims that dozens of women have been sexually molested both in Darfur and abroad.
At least 25 “conflict-related sexual assaults” were reported in Nyala, the South Darfur city, along with 21 in El Geneina, the West Darfur capital, and 42 in Khartoum.
According to the unit, the majority of survivors in Khartoum and “all in Nyala and Geneina” identified the attackers as RSF members.
Darfur’s governor and former rebel commander Mini Minawi, who is now friendly with the army, named Darfur a “disaster zone” in the beginning of June.
The warring parties are being urged repeatedly by aid organizations to create safe passageways so that they can access the wounded and people who have been displaced by the fighting.
Due to the beginning of Sudan’s rainy season, which is typically accompanied by floods that spread water-borne infections, these calls have become more urgent.
