Official truce, violence on the ground: fighting in Sudan continues, Friday, April 28, in Khartoum and especially in the Darfur region, despite an extension of the truce concluded between the army and the paramilitaries engaged in a war that has killed more than 500 people in nearly two weeks.

In El-Geneina, the capital of Western Darfur, 74 people were killed during the first two days of fighting on 24 and 25 April, the doctors' union reported in a provisional report, as the deaths of the last few days could not be counted as all hospitals are "out of service".

Shortly before a three-day ceasefire expired at midnight (22 GMT) on Thursday, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane's army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), known as "Hemedti," approved a 00-hour extension of the truce that was almost never respected by either side.

In Darfur, "the situation is still very tense," a resident of El-Geneina told AFP: "It was a very difficult day yesterday. There is no more food", because "the markets have been looted".

Since Thursday evening, lawyers and doctors have been sounding the alarm for the Darfur region, located on the border with Chad. In El-Geneina, fighters brought out "machine guns, heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft firing machines" and "fired rockets at houses", reports the Darfur Bar Association.

"Burhane and Hemedti must immediately stop this stupid war that is being waged on the backs of civilians," he urged. The UN, for its part, indicates that "weapons are distributed" to civilians.

 "Massacre"

The first evacuations of expatriates from the UN and humanitarian organizations in Darfur began on Monday. Soon after, violence increased in El-Geneina, says the doctors' union, referring to a "massacre".

Some 50,000 children "suffering from acute malnutrition" are deprived of food aid in Darfur, warns the UN, which suspended its activities there after the death of five humanitarian workers.

02:38

Sudanese refugees in Chad: 'The needs are immense' © France24

Little information is filtering from this region, where a civil war unleashed in 2003 between the regime of Omar al-Bashir, deposed in 2019, and ethnic minority insurgents has left about 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN.

The warring parties continue to accuse each other of violating the truce. The army even denounced the RSF firing on a Turkish military plane evacuating nationals in Sudan. Ankara confirmed the report, saying no one was injured in the firing, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

On the diplomatic front, the two generals each said they had had exchanges with foreign leaders involved in the talks, including those from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Dashing hopes of a democratic transition, the two generals had together ousted civilians from power in a coup in 2021. Since then, they have failed to agree on the integration of paramilitaries into the army before finally going to war with each other on April 15.

"Facilitating the transit of civilians"

In Khartoum, the five million inhabitants are deprived of running water and electricity, as well as, often, internet and telephone. Gasoline and cash are also running out.

The fighting has caused a mass exodus in this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world. The African Union calls for "facilitating the transit" of these civilians fleeing the fighting.

Tens of thousands of people are already in neighbouring countries, including Chad in the west and Egypt in the north. A total of 270,000 people could be fleeing to Chad and South Sudan, according to the UN.

05:07

Fighting in Sudan: a look back at the evacuations of foreign © nationals France24

Several Western countries, including the United States, France, Canada and the United Kingdom, continued to evacuate hundreds of people. China has announced that it has evacuated most of its nationals.

A new Saudi ship arrived Friday in Jeddah (west), bringing to 2,991 the number of people evacuated by RIyad, which received the bulk of foreigners who left Sudan by sea.

With AFP

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