Fighting in Sudan is trapping families in their homes and spreading terror on the streets

Street battles and rocket fire added to the chaos Sudan on Tuesday, when a ceasefire between the country’s two warring generals collapsed, paralyzing the capital and trapping civilians in their homes for fear of crossfire

Parents and children, doctors and students, senior officials and diplomats have been attacked since fighting erupted over the weekend. So was a diplomatic convoy carrying US citizens and a senior EU official was shot.

At least 185 people died and more than 1,800 were injured. over the past four days, according to UN officials, though the actual number is most likely much higher.

The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday that he spoke with Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan, leader of the paramilitary group involved in the attack on the US convoy. Hamdan then called for a 24-hour ceasefire to allow civilians to at least evacuate to get the desperate supplies.

fear on the streets

But faced with mixed signals that the rival Sudanese military had agreed to participate, residents of the capital Khartoum, a city with a population of 5 million, too scared to leave the house.

“We take refuge in the room in the center of the house, which has no windows, and put up the mattress to protect us in case the air raids hit us,” said a Khartoum resident named Rana, a 29-year-old pharmacist. and 5 months pregnant.

Rana, who insisted on being identified only by her first name for fear of reprisals, she and her husband said they had enough water for two days, but would soon run out of supplies and medicines that you need on a daily basis.

When her husband tried to buy food on Monday, she said, he and a neighbor were robbed by two gunmen wearing the beige uniforms of Hamdan’s fighters, the Rapid Support Forces. The men stole money and phones, she added.

Until a few days ago Hamdan maintained an alliance with the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, with whom he had joined to take power in a coup in 2021. But then they turned against each other each other and, when international efforts to mediate the dispute and bring Sudan to civilian rule failed, their rivalry erupted into violence this weekend.

It was reported on Tuesday that a ceasefire had been reached, but shortly after 18:00, when the fighting should have stopped, several residents said loud gunfire, explosions and the sound of fighter planes flying over the country.

Within hours, the rival parties accused each other of violating the ceasefire.

“I never thought there was,” said Raga Makawi, a Khartoum-based researcher and publisher.

The persistence of violence highlighted how rapidly the security situation deteriorated. Hospitals closed due to bombing and shortages of supplies. The inhabitants have been days trapped in their homes without electricity or water. Aid workers and foreign officials came under repeated firefights, compounding the sense of unpredictability.

“Some people live almost normally in some areas of Khartoum,” said Aseel Ibrahim, a freelance graphic designer who fled her home to a relative in the suburbs. “Others live in the midst of war.”

attacks on diplomats

At least one senior European Union official has been shot and is receiving medical treatment, according to four people familiar with the situation. The official, Wim Fransen, a Belgian national, went missing on Sunday night as fighting intensified between rival militaries in Khartoum.

His colleagues at the EU mission in Khartoum, fearing the worst, started looking for him and finally located him on Tuesday, the sources said. His injuries, they added, are serious but not life threatening.

The circumstances of Fransen’s injury were not immediately clear. However, when fighting broke out in Khartoum which forced the population underground, the embassies asked their staff to take refuge at home. An EU ambassador was also attacked on his property in the city, but was not seriously injured according to authorities.

At a news conference in Japan, Blinken said the US diplomatic convoy was clearly identified with US flags and diplomatic license plates as it passed through Khartoum on Monday.

The convoy was carrying US officials from their homes in the city to a large US residential complex in central Khartoum, said four diplomatic officials, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

At present, shots have hit an armored vehicle in the convoy, but none of its occupants have been injured, officials said.

“All of ours are safe,” Blinken said.

The attack was under investigation, he added, but initial reports indicated the attackers may have been linked to rapid support forces.

Adding to the volatility of the conflict, Hamdan’s fighters captured a group of Egyptian troops in Sudan over the weekend, fueling rumors that Egypt was backing the Sudanese army.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a neighboring country of North Sudan, denied these allegations on Tuesday in his first public remarks about his country’s military involvement in Sudan since fighting erupted.

“Our forces were here to train with our brothers in Sudan and not, in any way, to support one side against the other,” he said. Egypt was working to ensure the safety of its captured troops, he said.

Amidst the turmoil, it was unclear who controlled which areas of the capital.

Every day, one side or the other claimed control of key facilities, such as airports and public broadcasters, but the claims were quickly refuted. The Rapid Support Forces posted a video online on Tuesday showing its fighters in front of the presidential palace, but it could not be verified.

Fighting has been reported across much of Khartoum.

Residents described fierce fighting near the prison, Kober, in recent days, and prisoners held there have not received clean water for three days, said Sara Hashim of the Missing Initiative, a group that tracks missing people in Sudan. Omar al-Bashir, the dictator overthrown in 2019 protests, is believed to be imprisoned there.

stuck at the airport

More than 450 students remain stranded at Khartoum University and an unknown number of passengers and workers are stranded at the main international airport, according to Germain Mwehu, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross for Sudan.

In areas of the city that appear to be under the control of the rapid support forces, many residents still do not dare to go out for help. THE paramilitary forces have been accused of looting and abusing civilians in cities across the country.

In a video shared by Rana, the pharmacist, two people dressed as Armed Rapid Support Forces fighters can be seen pointing guns at their neighbor on the street.

Most of the other twelve families living in their building were also unable to leave due to the fighting. On Tuesday, during a phone call, gunfire and explosions were heard in the background.

Rana said she planned to fly to Saudi Arabia, where she’s from, on Saturday to celebrate Eid with her family and stay in the final months of her pregnancy. But even though the airport is less than 3 kilometers from his home, he said leaving Sudan has never seemed so difficult.

The fighting has left the airport in ruins and commercial flights grounded.

“It could take months to get the airport back up and running,” he said. “Where do we go?”