After the ceasefire ends, clashes return to the Sudanese capital following the redeployment of forces
Residents of Sudan’s capital Khartoum reported hearing no artillery or gunfire from 6 a.m. on Saturday, the date the 24-hour truce took effect until Sunday morning alone, and confirmed that all three cities of Khartoum experienced instability, a calm unprecedented in previous truces, but once the truce ended, fierce clashes resumed.
Reuters news agency reported clashes and artillery fire in parts of the Sudanese capital early Sunday, shortly after the end of a 24-hour ceasefire that had brought a brief lull in eight weeks of fighting between rival military factions.
Witnesses said fighting resumed shortly after the ceasefire ended at 6 a.m. in the north of Omdurman, one of three neighboring towns, along with Khartoum and al-Bahri, which make up the capital around the confluence of the Nile River.
Residents said that an artillery bombardment took place in the East Nile area in the eastern outskirts of the capital, while explosions and clashes were reported in Khartoum.
The war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out on 15 April over tensions linked to an internationally backed plan for a transition to civilian rule.
Armistice Success
According to the British newspaper, Global Eco, many of the truces that the two sides announced since the outbreak of the war in mid-April did not hold. Soon thereafter, they were involved in violations and recriminations from both sides, prompting the US-Saudi mediation to freeze the negotiations hosted in Jeddah, especially since the two sides did not abide by the agreement’s provisions and the Declaration of Principles for Humanitarian Purposes.
“So far things are going without any violations,” said Muhammad Abdul Baqi, a Sudanese journalist based in the capital. “We haven’t heard any gunfire since the beginning of the truce, and there is a state of total calm.”
Eyewitnesses confirmed that the truce is still in place despite the limited movements of the military fighting forces. They noted and confirmed the existence of relative movement in some markets and main streets. They only heard intermittent gunfire before the truce went into effect.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing RSF movements and repositioning at a number of points in Khartoum, as well as the withdrawal of some RSF troops from outside Khartoum state, and activists circulated videos on social media of columns of civilian vehicles being used, with RSF members in Jabrat al-Sheik, Kordofan state, saying they were on their way to the west.
