2023-04-19 10:31:52
Published on : Modified :
Despite the shortage of fuel, thousands of civilians are trying to flee Khartoum under the bombs towards calmer regions. Chancelleries in Sudan are trying to arrange transport for their nationals. Several hundred French people living there have been instructed to stay “confined to their homes”.
The fighting that continues to rage on Wednesday, April 19, in the Sudanese capital has pushed thousands of civilians to flee Khartoum. Armed exchanges between the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the regular army have killed more than 200 people in Sudan in four days.
On foot or by car, on roads strewn with corpses and charred armored vehicles, thousands of Sudanese try to pass under the crossfire of the FSR of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, and the army led by the general Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, in charge since their joint coup in 2021.
Since Saturday, the international community has called for dialogue. But the two men remain deaf to calls for a ceasefire or at least a temporary truce to evacuate civilians from the most dangerous neighborhoods.
>> To read also: Who are the FSR, these paramilitaries opposed to the army in Sudan?
Air strikes and explosions hit Sudan’s capital on Wednesday, marking the failure of the brief ceasefire that began on Tuesday evening between the army and paramilitary forces.
According to a resident of the eastern districts of Khartoum, the intense fighting resumed early Wednesday morning, following airstrikes and artillery fire the day before.
Shortages threaten Khartoum
While the fighting sometimes experiences brief lulls, most often time to reload ammunition or move a few streets, every day clusters of families have managed to get out of the capital.
“But most service stations are dry,” said Augustine Passilly, a freelance journalist, who spoke with families looking for gasoline to take refuge in quieter regions.
In the Sudanese capital, daily life has not been tenable since Saturday. Electricity and running water have disappeared and only return for a few hours in some places.
“Some water and electricity supply centers have been damaged (…). The residential area of Riyadh, in the east of Khartoum, has been deprived of water and electricity for 48 hours. Solidarity organize with the neighbors equipped with an electric generator which still works. But they will soon run out of fuel to power it”, details Augustine Passilly.
Lost bullets and closed hospitals
From a security point of view, stray bullets regularly pierce a wall or a window. Worse, sometimes a missile from the sky reduces a building or a hospital to a pile of rubble.
As for food stocks, traditionally limited in a country where inflation is galloping, they are only melting and no more supply trucks have entered the capital since Saturday.
According to the UN, citing the Sudanese Ministry of Health, at least 270 people were killed and 2,600 injured in the clashes. And all the doctors repeat it, no assessment is reliable as the battlefield is so dangerous: many bodies and many wounded have not yet been found.
The fighting has already closed seven hospitals in Khartoum, doctors report, while most of the others can no longer operate: because they no longer have equipment, because fighters occupy them or because medical staff, taken under fire, were unable to take up their post.
“Several hundred” French nationals stranded in Sudan
In this context, the chancelleries in Sudan are trying to organize transport for their nationals, but their task is complicated by the attacks.
On Monday, a US diplomatic convoy came under fire, the European Union ambassador was ‘attacked in his residence’ in Khartoum and the Belgian head of the EU humanitarian mission was ‘hospitalized’ following being hit Gunshot.
>> To read also: Fighting in Sudan: NGOs denounce the impossibility of delivering aid
Asked regarding Franceinfo, the spokesperson for the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Anne-Claire Legendre, indicated on Wednesday that “several hundred” French nationals were in Sudan and that they had been instructed to stay “confined to their homes”.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, has undertaken the “necessary preparations” for the evacuation of around 60 nationals, in coordination with other countries.
A prospect that might still be distant because the fighting started at Khartoum airport, now out of service.
With AFP and Archyde.com
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