KHARTOUM, SUDAN
On the fourth day of a tenuous cease-fire mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, fighting between troops loyal to Sudan’s competing generals shook the western area of Darfur, according to witnesses.
Minutes after it went into effect on Monday night, the one-week truce—the most recent in a series of accords that have all been routinely broken—was broken.
The warring parties have subsequently blamed one another for more breaches of the cease-fire, which is designed to enable desperately needed humanitarian supplies to reach war-torn areas of the nation.
Six weeks into a conflict between the regular army, commanded by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), inhabitants of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, reported “battles with all types of weapons.”
starvation threatens millions of people.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more than 1,800 people have died in the fighting since it started on April 15.
In addition to the 300,000 people who fled to nearby countries, the UN estimates that more than 1 million Sudanese have been displaced.
One-third of Sudan’s 45 million residents were already in danger of hunger before the war started, and the U.N. estimates that nearly 25 million people currently need humanitarian assistance.
While the present cease-fire agreement has allowed for a break in combat, no humanitarian corridors have been created to let people to flee or help to reach the impacted regions.
Fighting in Khartoum and Darfur
On Thursday, the U.S. said that monitors had seen combat in Khartoum and Darfur as well as the deployment of artillery, drones, and military aircraft.
The spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, Matthew Miller, stated, “We maintain our sanctions jurisdiction and if necessary we will not hesitate to utilize that ability.
The situation in Darfur, which was already devastated by a battle that started in 2003 and saw the then-President Omar al-Bashir unleash the dreaded Janjaweed militia to put down an uprising among ethnic minority groups, has been especially concerning.
The RSF, which was founded by the Janjaweed and is now managed by Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, was formerly Burhan’s deputy.
Burhan and Daglo had orchestrated a coup in 2021 that toppled a civilian transitional government, but they afterwards got into a contentious power battle.
