2023-05-15 07:37:00
Published on :
The population still lives in fear and hunger in Sudan, following a month of intense fighting between Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and Mohamed Hamdane Daglo. Thousands of refugees flee daily to neighboring countries of Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia or South Sudan.
Before the war, Sudan was mired in the political and economic slump. After a month of fighting between the troops of the two generals who are vying for power, the country threatens to sink.
The clashes do not weaken. Sudan’s regular army on Monday (May 15th) carried out airstrikes along the Nile, north of Khartoum, as it tries to repel rival paramilitary forces, witnesses said.
The war between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has left more than 750 dead, thousands injured and nearly a million displaced and refugees.
In this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world, the population lives in fear and hunger.
Food aid suspended, banks closed and inflation
In Khartoum and Darfur, few go out to buy food for fear of stray bullets. The third of the population that depended on international food aid is now deprived of it, the aid having been looted or interrupted following the death of 18 aid workers.
Elsewhere, there is a lack of money because the banks, some of which were looted, have not opened since April 15, or because prices have soared – quadrupled for food or twenty for gasoline.
Barricaded in their homes without water or electricity, the five million inhabitants of Khartoum await a hypothetical ceasefire amidst air raids, combat with heavy weapons and artillery fire, even in homes and hospitals.
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In Khartoum, the airport no longer works, shopping centers have been looted and administrations are closed “until further notice”. The expatriates were evacuated in the crush in the first days of the war.
What remains of the administration has retreated to Port Sudan, 850 kilometers east of Khartoum, spared the violence and where a small UN team is trying to negotiate the delivery of aid humanitarian.
Thousands of refugees enter Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia or South Sudan every day. Egypt, which is going through the worst economic crisis in its history, is worried. The other neighboring countries fear a contagion.
Negotiations but still no truce
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the two sides are negotiating a “humanitarian” truce to let civilians out and aid in. But they only agreed on the principle of respect for the rules of war, leaving the question of the cessation of hostilities to later “extended discussions”.
For researcher Aly Verjee, “if the two camps do not change their way of thinking, it is difficult to imagine a translation on the ground of commitments on paper”.
Because experts and diplomats repeat it: each of the two generals thinks “to be able to win militarily”, thanks to large numbers and foreign support. General Daglo is the great ally of the United Arab Emirates as well as, according to the American Treasury, Russian mercenaries of Wagner, while the great Egyptian neighbor hangs all his weight behind Abdel Fattah al-Burhane.
The two men therefore seem more interested in a long conflict than in concessions at the negotiating table.
“The army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) violate truces with a regularity that shows a degree of impunity that surpasses all, even by Sudanese standards of the conflicts”, alarms Alex Rondos, former representative of the EU for the Horn of Africa.
In Darfur, “snipers shoot anyone who leaves their home”
Conflicts, Sudan has known them. In Darfur, the repression under the dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir (1989-2019) of ethnic minorities by soldiers and paramilitaries who are now enemies had killed 300,000 people in the 2000s.
Everyone there now shoots everyone: soldiers, paramilitaries, tribal fighters and even armed civilians. “We are told that snipers are shooting anyone who comes out of their house,” Mohamed Osman of Human Rights Watch told AFP. Trapped, “people injured in fighting two weeks ago are dying at home”.
Doctors Without Borders points out that in the camps for the displaced from the Darfur war, “people have gone from three meals a day to just one”.
With AFP
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