KHARTOUM, June 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Army warplanes bombed the Sudanese city of El Obeid on Wednesday, as the country prepared to mark two months of suffering since a power struggle between rival generals plunged the country into devastating war.
Since Apr 15, the regular army headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been locked in urban combat that has left whole neighbourhoods of the capital Khartoum unrecognisable.
The fighting quickly spread to the provinces, particularly the western region of Darfur, and has killed at least 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project’s (ACLED) latest figures from last month.
On Wednesday, the regular army carried out “air strikes for the first time in El Obeid,” the capital of North Kordofan state, 350km southwest of Khartoum, which has been “surrounded by the RSF since the war began”, witnesses said.
Nationwide, around 2.2 million people have fled their homes, more than one million of them escaping Khartoum, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Of those, more than 528,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, according to the UN agency.
US and Saudi mediation efforts are at a standstill after the collapse of multiple ceasefires in the face of flagrant violations by both sides.
“We think we’ve given them every shot,” a senior US State Department official said on Tuesday.
Aid agencies have pleaded for the opening of safe humanitarian corridors to allow assistance in but to no avail.
Entire districts of Khartoum no longer have running water, mains electricity is only available for a few hours a week and most hospitals in combat zones are not functioning.
A record 25 million people – more than half the population – are in need of aid, according to the UN, which says it has received only a fraction of needed funding.
Saudi Arabia has announced an international pledging conference for next week.
Despite the dangers and other obstacles, latest figures from the UN say aid has reached 1.8 million people, a fraction of those needing assistance.
The conflict’s other main battleground Darfur was already scarred by a two-decade war that left hundreds of thousands dead and more than two million displaced.
Homes and markets have been burnt to the ground, hospitals and aid facilities looted and more than 149,000 sent fleeing into neighbouring Chad.
The Umma Party, one of Sudan’s main civilian groups, said El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, had been turned into a “disaster zone”, and urged international organisations to provide help.
Violence taking place there is a “full-fledged humanitarian crime”, the party said, estimating in a Wednesday statement that more than 1,000 lives had been lost in “abhorrent siege and systematic violations against citizens”.
Also referring to Darfur, the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, on Tuesday said there was “an emerging pattern of large-scale targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnic identities, allegedly committed by Arab militias and some armed men” in RSF uniform.
If these reports are verified they “could amount to crimes against humanity”, he said. — NNN-AGENCIES
