The Sudanese army and paramilitaries exchanged shells from two opposite banks of the Nile in the capital on Monday, Khartoum residents said, in the seventh month of a war whose atrocities NGOs denounce.
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“The army from Omdurman on the western bank and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from Khartoum-North on the eastern bank” exchanged artillery fire and rockets, a witness told AFP.
A story echoed by other residents, including local activists, who say bombings have caused dozens of civilian casualties in recent weeks.
The conflict, which began on April 15 between the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and his deputy and rival, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, claimed more than 10,000 lives, according to an estimate by the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project Tote (Acled), is considered largely undervalued.
According to the United Nations, more than six million people have also been displaced and most infrastructure has been destroyed.
The two camps are unlikely to make any concessions at the negotiating table, as the failure of the negotiations sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia at the beginning of November shows once again.
On Monday, the RSF claimed it had “attacked Wadi Seidna base,” a strategic air base north of Khartoum, and “destroyed a C130 military transport aircraft and an ammunition depot.”
More than 800 kilometers southwest, in al-Muglad, in western Kordofan, the army withdrew from a base after a paramilitary attack in this oil-rich region, witnesses said.
In the same state, in Babanusa, witnesses reported army airstrikes on paramilitaries.
The army has retreated several times in recent weeks as the RSF took control of military bases in the vast Darfur (west) region.
Organized ethnic massacres
The paramilitaries announced that they had taken “complete control” of El Daein, the capital of East Darfur, marking the latest meteoric advance by the RSF into Darfur, where only the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, remains , the army is in their hands.
Experts, humanitarian workers and the United States have warned of an impending attack on El Fasher, while human rights activists have reported massive ethnic massacres in RSF-controlled locations in Darfur that have been plagued by decades of ethnic violence.
In a report released late Sunday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the UN Security Council to take action to prevent further atrocities following the killing of hundreds of civilians in Darfur.
“Ethnicity-based killings by the RSF in West Darfur bear the hallmarks of a campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians,” said HRW’s Mohamed Osman.
“The UN Security Council must stop ignoring the urgent need to protect civilians in Darfur,” he added.
In the city of Ardamata alone, more than 1,000 people were killed by armed groups in early November, according to the European Union, who forced more than 8,000 people to flee to neighboring Chad within a week, according to the United Nations.
Mass graves
Survivors told HRW of mass killings, ethnically motivated executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, looting and sexual violence.
HRW verified satellite images that appear to confirm reports of newly dug mass graves where civilians buried their dead before fleeing.
The NGO also warned of the impending closure of the UN mission in Sudan, which would “significantly limit the UN’s monitoring of the situation.”
Sudan this month called for an end to the mandate of the UN mission, which has operated mainly in the army-controlled east of the country since the start of the war.