Countries such as South Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia fear that the war will spread to them, and request aid from the United Nations, which confirms that it has received little money from its financiers.
Fighting continues in Sudan despite the extension of the never-observed truce, which was intended to deliver vital humanitarian aid to a country on the brink of famine.
Since May 22, the Saudi and American mediators have been praising the ceasefire, which has remained a dead letter. On the ground, the air and artillery bombardment did not stop, and the movement of armored vehicles continued.
The war, which has claimed more than 1,800 lives, according to the “Alkyd” organization, and more than a million and a half displaced persons and refugees, according to the United Nations, continues to claim victims and force more families to leave their homes.
And on the night of Monday to Tuesday, citizens confirmed to AFP that the fighting continued in Khartoum and in Nyala in the Darfur region in western Sudan, which had previously witnessed a bloody civil war in the first decade of the current century.
As usual, the army, led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, exchanged accusations of violating the armistice, and each party says that it is responding to the opponent’s attacks.
Infrastructure collapse
For a month, each side has agreed to proposals from Washington and Riyadh to extend the truce, which aims to allow civilians to flee combat zones and open safe passages to send humanitarian aid.
Before the war, Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world, with one in three people suffering from hunger, electricity was cut off for long periods every day, and the health system was on the verge of collapse.
Today, seven weeks after the outbreak of the war, 25 million out of 45 million Sudanese need humanitarian aid to continue, according to the United Nations.
And now, according to UNICEF, “13.6 million children are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian support.” Of these, “620,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition,” according to the UN agency.
Running water no longer reaches some areas of Khartoum, electricity is only available for a few hours a week, and three quarters of hospitals are out of service.
As for the hospitals that continue to operate, they have few medical supplies and medicines, and they are forced to buy the fuel needed to operate the electricity generators at twenty times its original price.
Since the outbreak of the war on the fifteenth of April, humanitarian organizations have been calling for security conditions that allow them to reach Khartoum and Darfur in order to supply their warehouses, which were looted or destroyed by the fighting.
But so far, these organizations have only been able to deliver a very small amount of medicine and food, as their workers cannot move because of the battles, and aid shipments that arrived by air are still stuck at customs.
As for some areas in Darfur, they are now completely cut off from the world, without electricity, internet or telephones, and Sudanese activists say they fear the worst.
And while Washington and Riyadh welcomed the extension of the truce for another five days, the Sudanese now fear on the ground an “all-out civil war,” in the words of the Alliance for Freedom and Change, the civilian bloc that was overthrown by the two warring generals who were allies and together carried out the 2021 coup.
“should arm”
This coalition sounded the alarm, due to the calls made by the two parties, calling on civilians to arm themselves.
He brought up again the issue of Darfur, where the army, the Rapid Support Forces, tribal fighters and armed civilians are involved in the battles, when the governor of the region, a former rebel faction leader now allied with the army, called on all citizens to arm themselves “to protect property”.
“In the current situation, we should arm ourselves, because everyone is in danger, people find themselves alone while they are being attacked in their homes, which are being looted,” a resident of the region on the border with Chad told AFP.
However, another citizen believes that calling on civilians to take up arms is “totally irresponsible and a dangerous call that could lead us to civil war.”
South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and other neighboring countries fear that the war will spread to them and request aid from the United Nations, which confirms that it has received only a small amount of money from its financiers.
On Monday, the United Nations warned that the continuation of the war may push Sudan to the list of countries threatened by a near famine.
Within a few days, the rainy season will begin, which carries with it several epidemics, from malaria to cholera.
