KHARTOUM – Sudan’s army announced a three-day cease-fire beginning Friday to allow civilians to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid Al-Fitr, following nearly a week of violence between its troops and a rival paramilitary force.
“The armed forces hope that the rebels will follow all of the terms of the truce and refrain from any military actions that would jeopardize it,” an army statement stated.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reached a 72-hour cease-fire earlier in the day.
After the army went on foot for the first time in its nearly week-long combat with the RSF, gunfire ripped through Khartoum’s residential neighborhoods.
Soldiers and RSF gunmen opened fire on each other in several districts throughout the city, including during the call for special early morning Eid prayers.
It was unclear when the cease-fire would commence. All day, gunfire buzzed unabated, interrupted by the thud of artillery and air attacks. Drone imagery revealed multiple plumes of smoke over Khartoum and its Nile sister cities, which form one of Africa’s largest urban centers.
The conflict has killed hundreds of people, primarily in Sudan’s capital and west, pushing the continent’s third-largest country, where almost a quarter of the population already relies on food aid, into a humanitarian calamity.
Because the airport is engulfed in combat and the skies are unsafe, nations such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Spain have been unable to evacuate embassy personnel.
The US State Department confirmed in Washington, without explaining, that one US person had been slain in Sudan. The White House stated that no decision had been taken to evacuate American diplomatic staff, but that the US was prepared to do so if required.
According to Reuters, the US is sending a big number of additional troops to its station in Djibouti in case of an eventual evacuation from Sudan.
At least five aid workers have been slain, including three from the World Food Programme, which has suspended its Sudan operation — one of the world’s largest food aid missions — since the incident.
On Friday, a worker for the International Organization for Migration was killed in the city of El Obeid after his truck was hit by crossfire while attempting to transport his family to safety.
Since the power struggle erupted this Saturday, the army has pushed forward, engaging the RSF on the ground after previously relying primarily on air strikes and artillery fire around the capital.
The army claimed in a statement that it has began “the gradual cleaning of hotbeds of rebel groups around the capital.”
