Summary
· Witnesses reported "artillery fire" in eastern Khartoum and around the state television building in the capital's sister city Omdurman, just across the Nile
Khartoum. Shelling rocked greater Khartoum on Friday as fighting between Sudan's warring generals intensified, despite US sanctions imposed after the collapse of a US- and Saudi-brokered truce.
Witnesses reported "artillery
fire" in eastern Khartoum and around the state television building in the
capital's sister city Omdurman, just across the Nile.
For nearly seven weeks, fighting
between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has
gripped Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, despite repeated efforts to
broker a humanitarian ceasefire.
The army announced it had brought in
reinforcements from other parts of Sudan to participate in "operations in
the Khartoum area".
Sudan analyst Kholood Khair said the
army was "expected to launch a massive offensive" to clear the
paramilitaries from the city's streets.
Washington slapped sanctions on the
warring parties Thursday, holding them both responsible for provoking
"appalling" bloodshed.
The US Treasury placed two major
arms companies of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Defence Industries System and Sudan
Master Technology, on its blacklist.
It also placed sanctions on gold
mining firm Al Junaid Multi Activities Co and arms trader Tradive General
Trading, two companies controlled by RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and
his family.
The State Department meanwhile
imposed visa restrictions on both army and RSF officials, saying they were
complicit in "undermining Sudan's democratic transition". It did not
name them.
Washington announced on Friday that
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will next week travel to Saudi Arabia where
he will discuss "strategic cooperation on regional and global
issues".
His trip follows efforts by both
countries to broker a durable ceasefire in Sudan.
Shot while fleeing
Analysts question the efficacy of
sanctions on Sudan's rival generals, both of whom amassed considerable wealth
during the rule of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, whose government was
subjected to decades of international sanctions before his overthrow in 2019.
So far neither side has gained a
decisive advantage. The regular army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has air
power and heavy weaponry, but analysts say the paramilitaries are more mobile
and better suited to urban warfare.
After the army announced it was
quitting the ceasefire talks on Wednesday, troops attacked key RSF bases in
Khartoum.
One army bombardment hit a Khartoum
market, killing 18 civilians and wounding 106, a committee of human rights
lawyers said.
The army will want to make
"some military gains before committing to any future talks in order to
improve their bargaining position", said Khair, founder of Khartoum-based
think tank Confluence Advisory.
On Friday, the army said it was
"surprised" by the US and Saudi decision to "suspend the
talks" without responding to an army proposal.
After its own representatives
decided to "suspend the negotiations", they had "remained in
Jeddah with the hopes that the mediators will take a fair and more effective
position that will guarantee commitment" to the ceasefire, an army
statement said.
Since fighting erupted on April 15,
more than 1,800 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict
Location and Event Data Project.
The UN says 1.2 million people have
been displaced within Sudan and more than 425,000 have fled abroad.
Conditions are especially dire in
Darfur, where those fleeing the violence told Doctors Without Borders (MSF) of
"armed men shooting at people trying to flee, villages being looted and
the wounded dying" without access to medical care, the aid group said
Friday.
UN mission renewed
Later Friday, the UN Security
Council extended for just six months the global body's political mission in
Sudan, after Burhan accused its envoy, Volker Perthes, of stoking conflict.
The mission was previously renewed
for one-year durations, its newly shortened time frame underscoring the
country's delicate situation.
When the fighting began, Perthes had
been focused on finalising a deal to restore Sudan's transition to civilian
rule, which was derailed by a 2021 coup by Burhan and Dagalo.
Growing differences between them
were supposed to be ironed out in UN-backed talks on the day they turned
Khartoum into a war zone.
UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres repeated his "full confidence" in Perthes. Several other
Council members also voiced support for the envoy.
"There needs to be regional and
continental leadership to resolve this" conflict, the Norwegian Refugee
Council's William Carter said.
Current council president the United
Arab Emirates and its three African members -- Gabon, Ghana and Mozambique --
"have exceptional leverage on whichever direction the Council takes on
this issue", he wrote on Twitter.
The 15 council members also resolved
to "condemn the attacks against the civilian population", UN
personnel and humanitarian actors, as well as the looting of humanitarian
supplies.
Some 25 million people -- more than
half Sudan's population -- are now in need of aid and protection, according to
the UN.
Aid corridors that had been promised
as part of the abortive humanitarian truce never materialised, and relief
agencies say they have managed to deliver only a fraction of the needs.
Humanitarian agencies have
repeatedly warned of the rainy season set to start this month, when the already
difficult conditions "will worsen and rivers will flood, complicating
movement and supplies", said MSF's emergency coordinator Christophe
Garnier.
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