Sudan crisis: UN warns Sudan is on “edge of abyss” after deadly violence.
Khartoum:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Sudan’s battling generals have agreed to a three-day ceasefire, after 10 days of urban fighting that left hundreds dead, thousands wounded, and a mass exodus of foreigners. Happened.
Previous attempts to stop the conflict had failed to take hold, but Blinken announced: “After intense negotiations over the past 48 hours, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) will begin a nationwide ceasefire starting midnight.” Have agreed to implement. April 24, will last for 72 hours.
Blinken’s statement came two hours before the ceasefire was to take effect.
It came after the UN chief warned that Sudan was on the “edge of an abyss” after fighting between the rivals sparked unprecedented fighting in the capital Khartoum as well as elsewhere in the country.
The fighting pits are loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF).
The RSF emerged from the Janjawid militia, which was unleashed by then-President Omar al-Bashir in Darfur, leading to war crime allegations against Bashir and others.
At least 427 people have been killed and more than 3,700 injured, according to UN agencies.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said among the dead was an assistant administrative attaché at Cairo’s embassy in Khartoum. It said the officer died while on his way from home to the embassy to follow evacuation procedures.
More than 4,000 people have fled the country in the foreign-organised evacuation that began on Saturday.
The United States and several European, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries launched emergency missions to protect their embassy staff and Sudan-based citizens by road, air, and sea.
But millions of Sudanese are unable to flee.
They are trying to survive severe shortages of water, food, medicines and fuel, as well as power and internet blackouts.
UN agencies reported that some Sudanese civilians were able to escape to “areas affected by the fighting, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan”.
“The morgues are full. Bodies are strewn on the streets,” said Attiya Abdullah, head of the doctors’ union.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that violence in Sudan – already one of the world’s poorest countries, with a history of military coups – “could spread to the entire region and beyond”.
“All of us must do everything within our power to pull Sudan back from the edge of the abyss,” Guterres said.
He also called for a ceasefire again.
Britain requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Sudan, which was expected to take place on Tuesday, according to a diplomat.
A UN convoy carrying 700 people completed the arduous 850-kilometre (530 mi) road journey from the capital to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where they braved gunfire and explosions.
UN mission chief Volker Perthes said the convoy had arrived safely.
He said, “Thirty-five hours in a less comfortable convoy is certainly better than three hours of being bombed and shelled.”
A UN statement said separately that he and other key staff would “remain in Sudan and continue to work towards a solution to the current crisis”.
– ‘Unspeakable destruction’ –
With the Khartoum airport disabled after the fighting, many foreigners were evacuated by smaller airstrips to countries including Djibouti and Jordan.
US special forces launched an operation with Chinook helicopters on Sunday to rescue the diplomats and their dependents, while Britain launched a similar rescue operation.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said more than 1,000 EU citizens had been evacuated during a “long and intense weekend” involving airlift missions by France, Germany and others.
China said on Monday it had “safely evacuated” the first group of citizens and would “make every effort to protect the lives, property and safety” of the more than 1,500 Chinese compatriots in Sudan.
The capital, a city of five million, has suffered “more than a week of unspeakable destruction,” Norwegian ambassador Andre Stiansen wrote on Twitter after their evacuation.
The International Crisis Group of Analysts warned that the fighting threatens to “quickly plunge the country into a full-scale war involving countless armed groups”.
One refugee, a Lebanese man, told AFPTV upon arriving by bus in Port Sudan that he was only “with this T-shirt and these pyjamas, all that I have after 17 years.”
Sudanese who can afford it are also fleeing Khartoum in overcrowded buses on the more than 900-kilometer desert drive north to Egypt.
The UN refugee agency said that of the 800,000 South Sudanese refugees who previously fled civil war in their country, some are choosing to return, crossing the border with women and children.
– ‘Anxiety and exhaustion’ –
In the capital, street fighting has often darkened the sky with smoke from shelled buildings and shops on fire.
“There was a rocket attack in our neighborhood … It seems like nowhere is safe,” said Taghrid Abedin, an architect resident.
Experts have long drawn links between the RSF and the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Blinken expressed “deep concern” earlier Monday that Wagner risked escalating the war in Sudan.
The army toppled Bashir in April 2019 after massive civilian protests, which raised hopes of a transition to democracy.
The two generals seized power in a 2021 coup but were later ousted, most recently over the RSF’s planned integration into the regular army.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
