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Sudan is on the verge of collapse

Sudan army/Photo Reuters

Clashes continued overnight Sunday into Monday in Sudan, where neither the army nor General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s powerful paramilitary force were able to gain ground despite fighting that killed at least 56 civilians, including three aid workers. UN, informs AFP. While the wounded number in the hundreds since the fighting began on Saturday, according to doctors, the World Health Organization (WHO) announces that “many of the nine hospitals in Khartoum that receive wounded civilians are running out of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids and other vital materials”. In the capital Khartoum, in some neighborhoods the electricity and running water have been cut off since Saturday, patients, including children, and their relatives “have nothing to drink or eat”, warns a network of pro-democracy doctors. It also says it is impossible to safely discharge treated patients, which creates “a bottleneck that prevents everyone from being cared for”.

The three-hour “humanitarian corridors” announced in the afternoon by the belligerents did not seem to change the situation because the sounds of explosions and gunfire did not stop in Khartoum. Fighting continued overnight between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), made up of former fighters from the Darfur war who became auxiliaries to the army before trying to oust it from power on Saturday. A network of pro-democracy doctors identified 56 civilians, as well as “dozens” of combatants killed and over 600 wounded. The World Food Program (WFP) has suspended aid after three of its staff were killed in Darfur, where more than a third of Sudan’s 45 million people needed humanitarian assistance before the recent outbreak of violence. Witnesses also reported artillery fire in Kassala, in the east of the country. The conflict had been simmering for several weeks, preventing any political settlement in one of the poorest countries in the world. Since the popular uprising that toppled Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Sudan has been trying to hold its first free elections after 30 years of dictatorship. During the coup that ended the democratic transition in October 2021, General Burhane and General Daglo joined forces to remove civilians from power. But their rivalry exploded on Saturday. Since then, the international community has multiplied calls for a ceasefire. The Arab League and the African Union met urgently. In Cairo, Arab countries agreed to condemn the violence and seek a political solution, an option that has so far not led to a return to the democratic transition in Sudan, which emerged in 2019 from a 30-year Islamic-military dictatorship. For its part, the African Union announced that it will send the president of its Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, to Sudan “to commit the parties to a ceasefire”. The airport is closed, as well as several borders, especially the one with Chad. The SDF announced it had taken control of the airport on Saturday, but the army denied it. From the United Arab Emirates, former civilian Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, arrested by General Burhane during the October 2021 coup, called for “the prevention of any foreign interference”.

By Cora Sulleyman

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