New attacks torpedo the ceasefire. Military conflict in the former “rogue state” has the potential to ignite the region.
Skeptics were right. As soon as mediators in South Sudan announced the agreement for a week-long ceasefire between the warring parties, fighting in Sudan resumed – as if on cue for bombing. Airstrikes around the presidential palace and army headquarters have shaken the capital, Khartoum. Artillery fire erupted in residential areas where Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries were trapped.
For three weeks, fighting between the regular troops of the head of the army and de facto head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF units of Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, his deputy, took a toll on the civilian population. The drought-hit country is headed for a humanitarian catastrophe. More than 100,000 Sudanese have already gone to neighboring countries, particularly South Sudan, Chad and Egypt – not to mention over a million refugees from Libya, Yemen or South Sudan who sought refuge from civil war in Sudan sought in their countries.