Port Sudan: Sudan’s army and Rapid Support Forces exchanged fire and shells from both banks of the Nile River in Khartoum on Monday, residents in the capital told AFP, in the seventh month of a bloody war in the country.
“The army from Omdurman on the West Bank and the RSF from Khartoum North on the east bank,” one witness told AFP.
This was confirmed by other residents, including local activists who say the shelling has particularly affected civilian homes in recent weeks and left dozens of casualties.
On Monday, the RSF spokesman said in a statement: “In a qualitative operation, our forces attacked the Wadi Saidna base (in northern Khartoum) in which a C130 military transport aircraft and an ammunition depot were destroyed.”
Since April 15th, the Sudanese army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has been raging.
The war has resulted in more than ten thousand deaths, according to estimates by the Armed Conflict Sites and Events Data Project (ACLID). It has displaced some six million people within the country or to neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations.
Earlier this month, a new round of U.S.- and Saudi-sponsored Jeddah negotiations failed to achieve any breach.
Multiple rounds of negotiations succeeded only in concluding a temporary cessation of hostilities, which were soon resumed once the deadlines expired.
The failure of multiple international mediation raises fears that the prolonged status quo could lead to the partition of the Sudan.
More than 800 kilometers southwest of the Wadi Sedna base, witnesses said that “the army has begun withdrawing from its garrison in the (city) of Al-Mujlad, which is close to the oil-producing areas, while the RSF posts on social media pictures of members of its forces inside the army garrison in Al-Mujlad.”
Others spoke of “clashes near the army headquarters in the city of Mujalid, west Kordofan, after the support forces attacked the garrison on Monday morning.”
(AFP)/Al-Yurae
