Artillery shelling reverberated in Khartoum on Friday as fighting intensified following the collapse of a truce between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan's army, which has brought reinforcements to the capital.
Plumes of smoke rose around the industrial zone west of Khartoum, while an Al Jazeera correspondent heard an explosion in the south of the city of Omdurman this morning.
Local sources told Al Jazeera that the smoke was likely to be caused by shelling by the Sudanese army on the positions of the Rapid Support Forces.
These developments on the ground come at a time when the Saudi and US mediators suspended the Jeddah talks between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, accusing them of not adhering to the ceasefire agreements concluded between them in the past period.
After blaming both sides for the collapse of the truce and talks in Jeddah, Washington on Thursday announced sanctions on companies and visa restrictions for officials linked to both sides of the conflict.
The economic sanctions target several companies in the industrial, defence and armaments sectors, including Sudan Master Technology, which supports the military, and the Junaid Mines Company, which runs several gold mines in the Darfur region and provides funding to the Rapid Support Forces.
Anger in the army
Meanwhile, Sudan's military said it had made proposals to mediators in Jeddah but was surprised that negotiations were suspended before responding to them, and urged mediators to continue efforts to persuade the other side to implement the truce requirements to return to negotiations.
In response to the US position, a Sudanese military official criticized the position of the US administration, which is sponsoring with Saudi Arabia the Jeddah negotiations between the army and the RSF. He said that the army delegation handed over to the two sides two days ago evidence that the "other party" did not implement the obligations of the truce agreement signed between them, and did not withdraw from hospitals and water and electricity service sites, but expanded its position inside 34 hospitals, took control of 29 ambulances and thousands of homes in several neighborhoods in the capital's three cities, and attacked other military and civilian sites during the truce period.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, the military official – who asked not to be identified – expressed surprise at the United States put the army and the rapid support in one hand, and "ignored that the rapid support bears responsibility for violating the truce because of its failure to control its forces, which turned into looting and looting and the use of civilians as human shields."
The source said army representatives suspended their participation in the Jeddah negotiations to give Riyadh and Washington an opportunity to assess both sides' commitment to the terms of the truce.
Rapid Support accuses the army
On the other hand, Youssef Ezzat, a political adviser to the Rapid Support Forces, told Al Jazeera that economic sanctions are useless in settling disputes, and have been tried with the isolated regime and have not affected it.
He stressed that the Jeddah negotiations collided with the army's refusal to have observers on the ground, noting that Saudi-American mediation is active so far in the Sudanese crisis.
He pointed out that the Rapid Support Forces have put forward a more comprehensive vision for resolving the political crisis in Sudan that goes beyond the framework agreement, and seeks to attract parties that were not part of the agreement.
He said that after the army lost its strategic positions on al-Ghaba Street, it tried to surprise their forces at the Taiba camp but failed, he said.