Truces follow one another and are similar in Sudan: fighting continued to rage on Monday 29 May but the Saudi and American mediators welcomed the extension of five days of a truce never respected supposed to allow the delivery of vital humanitarian aid for the country on the brink of famine.

Residents of Khartoum reported to AFP fighting in the northern suburbs and artillery fire in the south of the capital of more than five million people.

As usual, the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo accused each other of attacking, assuring that they were only responding to assaults. The RSF accused the army of carrying out a deadly airstrike in Khartoum on Monday.

Washington and Riyadh, for their part, note every day "new violations of the ceasefire" but without ever activating the "sanctions" or the "monitoring mechanism" they said they were putting in place when the first truce was announced.

Since its start on 22 May, families have been able to get out quickly to buy food or drink, for twice as much as before the war. But thousands more continue to hide in their homes, many without running water or electricity, for fear of stray bullets.

Humanitarians have only been able to deliver small quantities of food or medicine because their staff cannot move because of the fighting and their airborne cargo is still blocked at customs, they say.

Newborns dead in hospital for lack of oxygen

The situation is worse in Darfur, a vast region on Chad's western border, already ravaged by war in the 2000s, according to Toby Harward of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Sporadic fighting between soldiers and paramilitaries in recent days in El-Fasher, Northern Darfur, as far as inside the Abu Shuk camp for internally displaced persons, has resulted in civilian casualties," he said.

Homes have been looted and tens of thousands of people have been displaced again by the fighting, which is "a flagrant violation of the ceasefire and prevents the distribution of humanitarian aid", he added.

In East Darfur, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "about thirty newborns have died in a hospital since the beginning of the fighting, including six the same week for lack of oxygen during power cuts".

" READ ALSO Humanitarian aid in Sudan, between security challenge and bureaucratic puzzle

Since the war began on April 15, more than 1,800 people have been killed, according to the NGO Acled. More than a million others have been forced to move elsewhere in Sudan and nearly 350,000 outside the country, according to the UN. Neighbouring States fear contagion and demand aid from the UN, which in return repeats that it has received only a tiny share of its donors' funds.

On Monday, the UN warned that with the war, Sudan has joined the list of ten countries that could soon experience famine. In a few days, the rainy season will begin and with it its cohort of epidemics, from malaria to cholera.

Increasing calls to arms

The country will have to deal with three-quarters of hospitals out of service in combat zones, according to the doctors' union, and others overwhelmed in areas spared but where displaced people are crammed.

If the belligerents have agreed to extend the truce, on the ground, the signals are not appeasement.

After the army recalled its pensioners, and tribes in the east of the country demanding weapons, the governor of Darfur, a former rebel now allied with the army, called on civilians to take up arms.

The Umma party, the oldest in the country, ousted from power by the putsch led in 2021 by the two generals now at war, denounced an "attempt to drag the country into civil war".

Yassir Arman, a leader of the bloc demanding civilian rule, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FLC), accused supporters of the ousted dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir of seeking "to exacerbate ethnic differences" to plunge the country into chaos and for the people to demand their return.

The FLC has also warned against calls for an "all-out civil war", asking both sides to follow the African Union's plan to end the crisis.

The latter said on Saturday that it was ready to implement a roadmap in Sudan and the Europeans gave it their support. Washington has said it supports the initiative, but with every jolt in Sudan, the Americans and Saudis conduct a diplomatic process parallel to regional efforts.

Truce or not, a new danger will remain: more and more unexploded projectiles litter roads and even buildings, the UN has warned.

With AFP

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