Sudan’s army and RSF say ceasefire extended but fighting goes on | Conflict News

Military and Rapid Support Forces agree to extend truce, but violence continues to rock Khartoum and Darfur region.

The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to extend their ceasefire amidst ongoing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western Darfur region.

The two sides accepted a 72-hour extension of the truce late on Thursday. The agreement, brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, has not stopped the fighting but created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate hundreds of their citizens by land and sea.

Together, the army and the RSF toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup but are now locked in a power struggle that has derailed an internationally backed transition to democracy and is threatening to destabilise a fragile region.

The army claims it controls most of Sudan’s regions and is defeating a large RSF deployment in Khartoum where some residential areas have turned into war zones.

Despite a partial lull in fighting since the first 72-hour ceasefire started, air strikes and anti-aircraft fire could be heard on Thursday in the capital and the nearby cities of Omdurman and Bahri, witnesses and Reuters journalists said.

The White House on Thursday said it was concerned by the ceasefire violations, adding that the situation could worsen at any moment and urging US citizens to leave within 24 to 48 hours.

Fighting has spread to the vast Darfur region, where conflict has simmered ever since civil war erupted two decades ago.

The Darfur Bar Association, a rights group, said at least 52 people had died in attacks by well-armed “militias” on residential neighbourhoods in the city of El Geneina, as well as its main hospital, main market, government buildings and several shelters for internally displaced people.

Militiamen from nomadic Arab tribes entered El Geneina as the fighting between the RSF and army created a security vacuum in recent days, said one resident, who asked to withhold his name due to fear of retribution. They were met with armed members of the Masalit tribe, with clashes extending across the city, causing a new wave of displacement.

At least 512 people have been killed and close to 4,200 wounded by the fighting since it started on April 15.

The conflict has limited food distribution in the vast nation, Africa’s third largest, where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.