Sudan battles intensify on 3rd day; civilian deaths reach 97

Sudans embattled capital awoke on Monday to a third day of heavy fighting between the army and a powerful rival force for control of the country as the weekends civilian death toll rose to 97Airstrikes and shelling intensified in parts of Khartoum and the adjoining city of OmdurmanRapid sustained firing was heard near the military headquarters with white smoke rising from the area Residents hunkering down in their homes reported power outages and incidents of lootingGunfire and shelling are everywhere Awadeya Mahmoud Koko head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers said from her home in KhartoumShe said a shell stuck a neighbours house on Sunday killing at least three people We couldnt take them to a hospital or bury themThe clashes are part of a power struggle between Gen AbdelFattah Burhan the commander of the armed forces and Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo the head of the Rapid Support Forces a paramilitary groupThe two generals are former allies who jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed Sudans shortlived transition to democracyBoth men have dug in saying they would not negotiate a truce instead engaging in verbal attacks and demanding the others surrenderOn Monday Dagalo whose forces grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Sudans Darfur region portrayed himself in a statement on Twitter as a defender of democracy and branded Burhan as the aggressor and a radical IslamistProdemocracy activists have noted that both generals have a long history of human rights abusesAt the same time both men have powerful foreign backers making them potentially susceptible to mounting diplomatic pressure to end the fightingSince fighting erupted on Saturday 97 civilians have been killed and hundreds have been wounded said the Sudan Doctors Syndicate a prodemocracy group monitoring casualtiesThere has been no official word on the number of fighters killedFootage posted online on Monday purported to show RSF barracks in Omdurman The bodies of dozens of men in camouflage uniforms were seen sprawled on beds and the floor of a medical ward and in a sandy outdoor areaThe authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently but they surfaced after the military said it has targeted RSF bases with airstrikes Mohmed alMokhtar alNour an RSF adviser told the Al Jazeera satellite network Sunday that RSF forces have withdrawn from the campThe chaotic scenes of fighting with tanks truckmounted machine guns artillery and warplanes in densely populated areas of the capital are unprecedented Sudan has a long history of civil strife but much of that has taken place in remote tribal areas far from KhartoumFighting also spread to the warwrecked western Darfur region and areas of northern and eastern Sudan near the borders with Egypt and EthiopiaThe violence erupted during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which ends later this week and is capped by the threeday Eid alFitr holidayThe battles created more hardships for Sudan where about 16 million people or onethird of the population depend on humanitarian assistanceAlso readViolence in Khartoum Indian embassy in Sudan advises Indians to not venture outOver the weekend the World Food Programme suspended operations in Sudan after three employees were killed in Darfur On Monday the International Rescue Committee also said it was halting its work because of the conflict with the exception of a refugee camp in the southeastOn Sunday the warring sides agreed to a threehour pause in fighting to allow civilians to stock up on necessities Compliance was spotty and there were reports of casualties during the humanitarian pause Volker Perthes the UN envoy for Sudan called out the breaches on Monday and urged both sides to iquestensure the protection of all civiliansKoko the head of the tea vendors union said Burhan and Dagalo must stop fighting and withdraw troops from residential areas We the people want to live in peace she said We want securityTop diplomats urged the sides to stop fighting including the US secretary of state the UN secretarygeneral the EU foreign policy chief the head of the Arab League and the head of the African Union Commission The UN Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan later on MondayUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed his call for a truce and a return to negotiations during a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on MondayPeople in Sudan want the military back in the barracks he said They want democracy They want the civilianled government Sudan needs to return to that pathIn recent months negotiations had been under way to get back on a path to democracy Under international pressure Burhan and Dagalo agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and prodemocracy groupsHowever the deal was vague on key points of dispute including how the RSF would be integrated into the armed force and who would have final control The signing of the deal was put off repeatedly as tensions rose between Burhan and DagaloThe fighting marks a deadly setback for Sudan a resourcerich nation strategically located at the crossroads of Africa and the Arab world Only four years ago Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose longtime autocratic leader Omar alBashirThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever