Truce fails to hold in Sudan as clashes rip through residential areas of Obeid, Darfur

A 24-hour ceasefire truce that began at nightfall on Wednesday, and was intended to bring calm to residential areas nationwide that have been ravaged by six days of continual clashes between Sudan’s warring commanders, was ruptured by Thursday morning by ongoing fighting in peripheral areas of the capital.  

Residents continued to flee Khartoum, where the provision of power, water and medical supplies is unreliable, while an uptick in violence flared in areas elsewhere in the country including Obeid and Darfur. Over 174 civilians have been killed so far in the conflict, and over 1,000 injured. 

Following the first hours of the truce, the sounds of aircraft and explosions that have dominated Khartoum since clashes broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces militia on Saturday gave way by 3 am on Thursday to a quiet falling over the city.

But Sudanese police said that some RSF fighters had infiltrated buildings belonging to the interior ministry and to the traffic police at 1 am, violating the truce. 

A rival accusation came from the RSF later on Thursday morning, with the militia announcing that state security forces launched an offensive on RSF posts in the west of Omdurman and claiming to have shot down during the clashes two military warplanes, a key strategic component of the armed forces arsenal. 

Residents heard clashes continue at the focal point of the struggle in the surroundings of the Sudanese Armed Forces General Command and the presidential palace, while skirmishes also took place in the Jabra area, south of Khartoum, including an attack on Wednesday targeting the house of the RSF’s first and second-in-command, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo and Abdul Rahim Dagalo.

In Omdurman, part of the tri-city metropolitan area of the capital, citizens awoke to hear clashes in some of the city’s western and southwestern neighborhoods, where one resident, Ikram Salah Eddin, told Mada Masr, she heard the sound of bullets closeby. Eyewitnesses described seeing armored vehicles belonging to the RSF stationed in the suburbs of Ombada and Bustan.

Continuous power and water outages have beset neighborhoods in the vicinity of the clashes, on Airport Street and Mohamed Naguib Street west of Khartoum International Airport. 

The confrontations cut supply to some areas, Khartoum State’s water authority told Mada Masr, though services were restored to some areas on Thursday and should remain stable, the authority said, unless its stations are used as battlefields. 

Meanwhile, the city of Khartoum Bahri, part of the Khartoum metropolitan area, remains parched, with residents suffering from interruptions to running water for over three days and the authority working, it said, to return services.

As people continue to pour out of the now highly-dangerous capital in search of safety, witnesses described east Khartoum residents seen heading carrying small bags and walking on foot to the capital’s transport hub to leave for the country’s surrounding states, while residents have also fled en masse from Airport Street and Mohamed Naguib Street, with members of many households injured by projectiles and stray bullets.

Around 420 kilometers from Khartoum, RSF forces entered the central city of Obeid early on Thursday morning entering into new clashes with the Sudanese Armed Forces. Activists on social media shared images of columns of vehicles loaded with soldiers and military equipment, entering the city in several directions. The forces came in from the Khiway areas, in West Kordofan State, said Abdullah Bashir, a civil society activist. 

“The clashes are very big,” Bashir continued, describing them as even larger than those taking place three days ago. 

Another Obeid resident, Yafa Abdel Baqy, described the clashes as erupting with no prior warning. They didn’t last long, he said, but wreaked devastating havoc, as the city's central bank, vegetable market, and police stations were also hit. Some Obeid residents shared images of damage impacting the homes and possessions of civilians in the area. 

"There’s a very high number of injuries, some children have died, we’ve been unable to count how many so far, and we are having difficulty evacuating the wounded, especially with the panic affecting citizens," said  Iman Bashir, a doctor at the teaching hospital, speaking to Mada Masr.

Citizens in Sudan’s west, particularly in Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, were also hit by chaos amid military clashes between the military and the RSF spreading into residential neighborhoods throughout Wednesday, killing more than 10 civilians, who were taken to the city's southern hospital and injuring more than 21 others.

At least 44 people have been killed in North Darfur so far, according to the state’s governor.