Sudan: New Truce Fails After Heavy Fighting

The one-week truce sponsored by South Sudan and which should have started this Thursday (05.04.2023) apparently failed after the units of the Sudanese army will clash with troops of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR) in the capital, Khartoum. Witnesses assured that this is the “most intense fighting” since the hostilities began.

“Our forces clashed today at dawn with the rebels who tried to attack the command of the North Khartoum Military Region,” neighboring the capital, the Armed Forces said in a statement, adding that there were deaths and injuries in the ranks of the FAR. The Army warned the citizens of the capital that they keep “away from the places of clashes”.

Loud explosions were heard in the Palace of the Republic and the Army General Command in the center of Khartoum, as well as fighting on the street in the North Khartoum military area. For their part, the paramilitaries affirmed in a statement that the Army violated the humanitarian truce by attacking their “units and residential neighborhoods with indiscriminate artillery and aviation bombardments.”

“Thes Rapid Support Forces They condemn the irresponsible actions of the leaders of the coup forces and of the extremist remnants of the defunct regime by violating the declared humanitarian truce and attacking our forces since dawn this Thursday in several of their towns,” the paramilitaries said in a note published on his official Twitter account.

In addition to air strikes on Khartoum, there was also artillery fire in the city of Omdurman. The truce agreed by the parties was to last until May 11 and would have been the longest since the clashes began three weeks ago between military factions loyal to two generals vying for power.

The purpose of the truce was to allow humanitarian aid to enter Sudan, a country of 46 million inhabitants. The tense situation, which has put international organizations on alert, also led to the calling of an emergency meeting of the Arab League for next Sunday, where this conflict will be addressed and, in addition, the possible readmission of Syria into the bloc.