A new seven-day truce began on Monday evening in Sudan, the north-eastern African state where the regular army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting for control of the country for more than a month. The truce had been decided to allow the arrival of aid to the civilian population, but as happened with all previous attempts to stop the fighting was immediately violated. Meanwhile, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country is getting worse.
Clashes began in mid-April between Sudan’s regular army and the powerful RSF group, which is in fact a parallel army that has between 70,000 and 100,000 members: the army is commanded by the country’s president, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, while the paramilitaries by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who is also the vice president.
The new truce had been negotiated by the United States and Saudi Arabia after several talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah and began at 21:45 on Monday (the same time in Italy). Within hours, however, they had been there bombing on the Sudanese capital Khartoum and artillery shells were fired in other parts of the area.
They had been there on the weekend armed clashes in Zalenjei and in Nyala, one of the largest cities in the country, in the western region of Darfur. Shortly before Monday’s truce took effect, the army had again shelled paramilitaries in Khartoum.
Until now, all the attempts at a truce introduced to allow for the evacuation of civilians or the arrival of humanitarian aid have been systematically violated by one side or the other.
On May 12, the army and the Rapid Support Forces had made an agreement for the protection of the civilian population, undertaking to create “humanitarian corridors” to facilitate relief efforts and allow those who wanted to leave the areas where armed clashes were taking place . However, according to a UN report, at least 11 attacks have been carried out since then against buildings used by humanitarian associations and four against health facilities in Khartoum, including a hospital. Again according to the information obtained by the UN, all the shelters set up to accommodate the displaced people in the West Darfur region would have been destroyed.
It is estimated that more than eight hundred civilians have been killed so far in the conflict and more than 5,000 wounded. At least one million people have left Sudan, and a few million Sudanese (out of a total population of about 48 million) are currently believed to have limited access to water, electricity and medicines. In recent weeks, the local population has also accused the RSF soldiers of having repeatedly looted houses, as well as public offices and international organizations: the Sudanese journalists’ union has denounced that in various cases reporters and video operators have also been robbed or injured .
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