My update on the crisis in Sudan for RFI English:
Ceasefire ends in Sudan with fresh fighting and no route for aid
Residents reported gunshots in the capital, Khartoum, hours before the ceasefire was set to run out at at 9:45 pm local time.
Locals told AFP they could hear street battles and artillery fire.
The city has been turned into a war zone, with thousands of families left short of food, water and electricity.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, which brokered the the seven-day truce, called for it to be extended to allow the delivery of urgent aid.
But after repeated breaches by both sides, they said in a joint statement, no humanitarian corridors had been secured.
Fighting spreads to Darfur
In six weeks of fighting between Sudan’s military and a rival paramilitary force, hundreds of thousands of people have fled the capital for the rest of the country or into neighbouring Egypt, Chad, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
The violence has also spread to other states, including Darfur, on the western border with Chad.
The governor of Darfur, a former rebel leader allied with the military, on Sunday called on civilians to take up arms.
This came after calls from the army for reservists and pensioners to arm themselves, stoking fears of an escalation into civil war.
According to Toby Harward, principal situation coordinator in Darfur for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, continued fighting in the region "blatantly disregards ceasefire commitments".
In El Fasher in North Darfur, intermittent fighting between Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has seen civilians killed over the last few days, Harward said.
Homes have been looted and tens of thousands newly displaced in the already war-ravaged region.
Humanitarian crisis
The persistent fighting has impeded the delivery of essential humanitarian aid, upon which 25 million people – over half the population – now rely to survive, according to the UN.
The UN sounded the alarm again on Monday, saying Sudan has become one of the highest-alert areas for food insecurity and requires "urgent" action from the international community.
The International Organisation for Migration says the conflict has displaced more than a million people inside Sudan, with a further 319,000 people seeking refuge over the border in Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.
At the Chadian border, UNHCR reported that the number of refugees arriving had now surpassed 90,000.
South Sudan refugees forced to return
More than 72,000 refugees from South Sudan have also been forced to leave Sudan and return to the country they had fled.
"From Khartoum, I wanted to go and study medicine in Cairo," 20-year-old Bolis David told RFI's reporter Florence Miettaux in the South Sudanese border town of Renk.
"But because of the crisis, I was forced to come here and change my plans. I want to go to Malakal [in South Sudan] and then go to university in Juba."
"When I was in Khartoum I was a student and I had ambitions," said another returnee, 25-year-old Charles Williams.
"If only the government could look after us, I could pursue my dreams."
Aid agencies have warned that with the rainy season approaching in June, parts of Sudan will become inaccessible, while the risk of cholera, malaria and waterborne diseases will rise.
Facing severe shortages of supplies and staff, Doctors Without Borders said that they might be forced to suspend "life-saving activities" if humanitarian corridors do not materialise.
At least 1,800 people have been killed in the conflict since 15 April.
(with AFP)
Sudan humanitarian crisis deepens as aid facilities become targets
Fighting eased in Sudan this week as a week-long humanitarian ceasefire allowed civilians to venture out. Yet for displaced people and refugees, humanitarian groups report a catastrophic situation.
Issued on:
Sporadic fighting has spread from the capital Khartoum to other parts of Sudan, with humanitarian work becoming increasingly difficult.
The International Organisation for Migration says battles have displaced more than a million people inside Sudan, with a further 319,000 people seeking refuge over the border in Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.
At the Chadian border, the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, reported that the number of refugees arriving in Chad from Sudan had now surpassed 90,000.
Refugee influx
Agency spokeswoman Eujin Byun, who worked at the border for 10 days, told RFI that Chad had received 27,000 new refugees from Sudan in less than a week.
New refugee needed to be urgently moved to safer camps further from the border, Brun said, adding this was made difficult by the fact most refugees were women and children awaiting other family members.
"There is still fighting near the border; we need to relocate the refugees because of insecurity," Byun said. "We have 13 existing camps inside of Chad, and they are better equipped."
She also recalled that before the conflict erupted, Chad was already hosting 600,000 refugees, including 400,000 Sudanese from western Darfur.
Humanitarian aid at risk
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also denounced what it called the "unacceptable harassment" of its staff and the "violent looting and occupation" of its medical premises and supported facilities in Sudan.
“We are experiencing a violation of humanitarian principles and the space for humanitarians to work is shrinking on a scale I've rarely seen before,” said Jean-Nicolas Armstrong Dangelser, MSF's emergency coordinator in Sudan.
Staff and patients were repeatedly facing the trauma of armed groups entering and looting MSF premises with medicines, supplies and vehicles being stolen all over the country, Dangelser added.
MSF, which runs projects in 10 states across Sudan, has been trying to scale up its activities since intense fighting broke out between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces on 15 April.
These efforts have been continually hampered by violence, armed incursions, looting and logistical challenges.
"This shocking disregard for humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law has impeded our ability to provide healthcare to people at a time when it is desperately needed," Dangelser said.
UN warehouses had been repeatedly attacked and looted, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, told RFI.
"We found the fridges unplugged and open with medicine that needed to be under controlled temperatures left completely unusable," he said.
Dieng called on those on both sides of the fighting to respect their commitment to humanitarian workers.
Conflict in sixth week
Sudan has endured more than five weeks of fighting that has claimed more than 1,800 lives, figures released Wednesday by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project show.
Violence between rival Sudanese forces also broke out in the western region of Darfur.
The conflict erupted after Sudan's de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, clashed with his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Burhan and Daglo had in 2021 staged a coup that unseated a civilian transitional government but later fell out in a bitter power struggle.
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