AIRLINK 73.06 Decreased By ▼ -6.94 (-8.68%)
BOP 5.09 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-1.74%)
CNERGY 4.37 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-2.02%)
DFML 32.45 Decreased By ▼ -2.71 (-7.71%)
DGKC 75.49 Decreased By ▼ -1.39 (-1.81%)
FCCL 19.52 Decreased By ▼ -0.46 (-2.3%)
FFBL 36.15 Increased By ▲ 0.55 (1.54%)
FFL 9.22 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-3.25%)
GGL 9.85 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-3.05%)
HBL 116.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-0.26%)
HUBC 132.69 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (0.14%)
HUMNL 7.10 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.57%)
KEL 4.41 Decreased By ▼ -0.24 (-5.16%)
KOSM 4.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.25 (-5.38%)
MLCF 36.20 Decreased By ▼ -1.30 (-3.47%)
OGDC 133.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.97 (-0.72%)
PAEL 22.60 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-1.31%)
PIAA 26.01 Decreased By ▼ -0.62 (-2.33%)
PIBTL 6.55 Decreased By ▼ -0.26 (-3.82%)
PPL 115.31 Increased By ▲ 3.21 (2.86%)
PRL 26.63 Decreased By ▼ -0.57 (-2.1%)
PTC 14.10 Decreased By ▼ -0.28 (-1.95%)
SEARL 53.45 Decreased By ▼ -2.94 (-5.21%)
SNGP 67.25 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (0.37%)
SSGC 10.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.13 (-1.2%)
TELE 8.42 Decreased By ▼ -0.87 (-9.36%)
TPLP 10.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.43 (-3.85%)
TRG 63.87 Decreased By ▼ -5.13 (-7.43%)
UNITY 25.12 Decreased By ▼ -0.37 (-1.45%)
WTL 1.27 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-3.79%)
BR100 7,465 Decreased By -57.3 (-0.76%)
BR30 24,199 Decreased By -203.3 (-0.83%)
KSE100 71,103 Decreased By -592.5 (-0.83%)
KSE30 23,395 Decreased By -147.4 (-0.63%)

KHARTOUM: Fierce fighting between the forces of rival generals shook the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Sunday as disease and malnutrition threatened the rising number of displaced.

Khartoum residents said they were shaken awake by warplanes and “violent fighting” between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Witnesses told AFP a police base and the state television building in the capital’s northwest were under attack by the RSF, who said they had shot down an army MiG fighter.

In central Khartoum, others saw “scores of RSF vehicles” driving towards the vicinity of “the Armoured Corps”.

Since April 15, the war between Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed nearly 3,000 people and displaced 2.2 million within the country, with another 645,000 fleeing across borders, according to the International Organization for Migration.

“The situation is grave,” the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in a statement detailing the hardships of displaced Sudanese stuck in nine camps in White Nile State which borders South Sudan.

In addition to Khartoum, the worst fighting has been in the western region of Darfur where residents, as well as the United Nations, United States and others, say civilians have been targeted and killed for their ethnicity by the RSF and allied Arab militias.

The death toll is believed to be much higher than recorded, as the World Health Organization says about two-thirds of health facilities are “out of service” in combat-affected areas.

Many injured people are unable to reach hospitals, and bodies lie rotting in the streets of Khartoum and Darfur.

A record 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian aid and protection, the UN says.

“Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women and children”, pack camps that stretch out from the south of Khartoum all the way to the border with South Sudan, MSF said.

“There are suspected cases of measles, and malnutrition among children has become a vital health emergency.

“From June 6 to 7 we treated 223 children with suspected measles, 72 were hospitalised and 13 have died,” MSF said.

The war has smashed the country’s already fragile infrastructure, leaving residents short of water and electricity in the oppressive summer heat.

Numerous ceasefires, including some negotiated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, have failed to hold.

Fighting continued during the just ended Eid al-Adha holiday for which the warring sides announced separate unilateral truces.

The worsening situation in Darfur is a bleak reminder of the region’s painful history.

In 2003, former strongman Omar al-Bashir armed and unleashed the RSF’s predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, against Darfur’s non-Arab ethnic minorities in violence that killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

Comments

Comments are closed.