Region

KHARTOUM — Fierce fighting broke out again Monday between Sudan's army and paramilitaries despite the formal extension of a truce, after the United Nations warned the humanitarian situation reached "breaking point".

More than 500 people have been killed since battles erupted on April 15 between Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who leads the regular army, and his ex-deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Millions of Sudanese around the capital have since hidden in their homes with dwindling food, water, and electricity as warplanes on bombing raids have drawn heavy fire from anti-aircraft guns.

"Warplanes are flying over southern Khartoum and anti-aircraft guns are firing at it," said one resident, while another witness told AFP he was also hearing "loud gunfire" in the area.

Burhan and Daglo have agreed multiple, poorly observed ceasefires, and extended the latest formal truce on Sunday by 72 hours, with each side repeatedly blaming the other for the frequent violations.

Millions of Sudanese are trapped in the country, where aid workers are among the dead, humanitarian facilities have been looted, and foreign aid groups have been forced to essentially halt all aid operations.

Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths said Sunday he was heading to the region to help “bring immediate relief to the millions of people whose lives have turned upside down overnight”.

“The humanitarian situation is reaching breaking point,” he said. “Goods essential for people’s survival are becoming scarce in the hardest-hit urban centres, especially Khartoum.”

“The cost of transportation out of worst-hit areas has risen exponentially, leaving the most vulnerable unable to locate to safer areas.”

50,000 flee overland 

Some 50,000 people have fled the raging conflict, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries including Chad, Egypt, and the Central African Republic, said the UN refugee agency.

The fighting has also triggered a mass exodus of foreigners and international staff, with countries the world over launching frantic evacuations by land, sea, and air.

Daglo’s RSF is descended from the Janjaweed unleashed by former strongman Omar Al Bashir in Sudan’s Darfur region, leading to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.

Further complicating the battlefield, Central Reserve Police were being deployed across Khartoum to “protect citizens’ properties” from looting, the Sudanese police said, confirming an army statement.

The RSF had warned police against joining the fight.

The US Treasury Department last year sanctioned the Central Reserve for “serious human rights abuses” related to its use of “excessive force” against pro-democracy protests after the October 2021 coup that brought Burhan and Daglo to power.

At least 528 people have been killed and almost 4,600 people wounded in the violence, according to Sudan’s health ministry, but the death toll is feared to be far higher.

Fighting has also spread across Sudan, especially in the long-troubled Darfur region, where witnesses reported intense conflict and looting.

At least 96 people were reported killed in El Geneina, West Darfur, the UN said.

The UN World Food Programme has warned the unrest could plunge millions more into hunger in a country where 15 million people already needed aid to stave off famine.

Only 16 per cent of health facilities are functioning in Khartoum, according to the World Health Organisation, with many facilities shelled.

On Sunday, a first Red Cross plane brought eight tonnes of humanitarian aid from Jordan to Port Sudan, which is so far untouched by the fighting and has served as an evacuation hub.

The aid included surgical material and medical kits to stabilise 1,500 patients.

Regional powers have joined negotiations to help end the violence.

An envoy of Burhan’s met on Sunday in Riyadh with the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, who called for the restoration of calm in Sudan, his ministry said.

Egypt has called an Arab League meeting of its permanent delegates Monday to discuss the “situation in Sudan”.

KHARTOUM — Heavy fighting again rocked Sudan's capital on Sunday as tens of thousands have fled the bloody turmoil and a former prime minister warned of the "nightmare" risk of a descent into full-scale civil war.

Army forces clashed with paramilitaries in Khartoum as deadly hostilities have entered a third week despite the latest ceasefire, which was formally set to expire at the end of the day.

"There has been very heavy fighting and loud gunfire ... since the early morning on my street," a southern Khartoum resident told AFP.

Clashes were reported around the army headquarters in central Khartoum, and the army also carried out air strikes in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman across the Nile River.

Foreign nations have scrambled to evacuate thousands of their citizens by air, road and sea since the fighting plunged the poverty-stricken country into deadly turmoil on April 15.

A first Red Cross plane brought eight tonnes of humanitarian aid to Port Sudan, from Jordan, on Sunday. It carried surgical material and medical kits to stabilise 1,500 patients, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Millions of Sudanese have endured crippling shortages of water, food, medicines and other basic supplies, while tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries, with more on their way.

Satellite images showed long bus convoys at the Egyptian border, while the UN said tens of thousands had escaped to Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.

The turmoil could deepen further in the power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Sudan’s former premier Abdalla Hamdok warned Saturday that the conflict could deteriorate into one of the world’s worst civil wars.

“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper... Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play,” Hamdok told an event in Nairobi. “I think it would be a nightmare for the world.”

Risk of famine 

The violence has killed at least 528 people and wounded about 4,600, the health ministry said, although the real casualty toll may be higher from fighting in 12 out of Sudan’s 18 states including the Darfur region.

The UN World Food Programme has warned the unrest could plunge millions more into hunger in a country where 15 million people already need aid to stave off famine.

Some of those killed still lie on the roads of Khartoum, and the ICRC’s Africa regional director Patrick Youssef told journalists the Sudanese Red Crescent was “trying to get to the bodies in the streets”.

Only 16 per cent of hospitals are functioning in Khartoum, according to the World Health Organisation, with many facilities shelled in the fighting.

The warring sides have agreed to multiple truces but none has taken hold, as chaos and lawlessness have gripped the capital city of five million and other regions.

The latest three-day ceasefire, due to expire at midnight (2200 GMT) Sunday, was agreed Thursday after mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations.

As the battles have raged regardless, the rival generals have taken aim at each other in the media.

Burhan again branded the RSF a militia that aims “to destroy Sudan” while Daglo called the army chief “a traitor”.

Local authorities in Khartoum on Sunday put civil servants on open-ended leave “due to the security situation”, though the majority of residents have already been hiding at home since the fighting broke out.

Tens of thousands flee 

Sudan was ruled for decades by Islamist-backed strongman Omar Al Bashir, who was ousted by the military in 2019 after mass pro-democracy protests.

The coup brought Burhan and Daglo to power, and they seized full control in another military takeover, in 2021, before turning on each other.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged negotiations to end the bloodshed.

“There is no right to go on fighting for power when the country is falling apart,” he told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television on Saturday.

“My appeal is for everything to be done to support an African-led initiative for peace in Sudan.”

About 75,000 have been displaced by the fighting, the UN said.

At least 20,000 have escaped to Chad, 4,000 to South Sudan, 3,500 to Ethiopia and 3,000 to the Central African Republic, it said.

The fighting has also triggered a mass exodus of foreigners and international staff.

Saudi Arabia said it had taken about 5,000 people to safety on ships across the Red Sea.

A US-organised road convoy arrived in Port Sudan Saturday to join the exodus.

And the UK Foreign Office said just under 1,900 Britons had been taken out on 21 flights, following large airlifts by France, Germany and other nations.

Fighting, looting and lawlessness have raged in the Darfur region. At least 96 people were reported killed in El Geneina, West Darfur, the UN said.

Darfur is still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003 when Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia, which left at least 300,000 dead and close to 2.5 million displaced according to UN figures.

“What’s happening in Darfur is terrible,” Guterres said. “The society is falling apart, we see tribes that now try to arm themselves.”

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dives on Sunday into the final two-week stretch before a momentous election that has turned into a referendum on his two decades of divisive but transformative rule.

The 69-year-old leader looked fighting fit as he strutted back on stage after a three-day illness and tossed flowers to rapturous crowds at an Istanbul aviation fest on Saturday.

It was the perfect venue for reminding Turks of all they had gained since his Islamic-rooted party ended years of secular rule and launched an era of economic revival and military might.

He was flanked by the president of Azerbaijan and the Ankara-backed premier of Libya — two countries where drones built by his son-in-law’s company helped swing the outcome of wars.

Istanbul itself has become a modern and chaotic megalopolis that has nearly doubled in size since Erdogan came to power in 2003.

But hiding beneath the surface are a more recent economic crisis and fierce social divisions that have given the May 14 parliamentary and presidential polls a powder keg feel.

‘Political coup attempt’ 

The nation of 85 million appears as splintered as ever about whether Erdogan has done more harm than good in the only Muslim-majority country of the NATO defence bloc.

Polls show him running neck-and-neck against secular opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his alliance of six disparate parties.

The entry of two minor candidates means that Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu will likely face each other again in a runoff on May 28.

But some of Erdogan’s more hawkish ministers are sounding warnings about Washington leading Western efforts to undermine Turkey’s might through the polls.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu referred Friday to US President Joe Biden’s 2019 suggestion that Washington should embolden the opposition “to take on and defeat Erdogan”.

“July 15 was their actual coup attempt,” Soylu said of a failed 2016 military putsch that Erdogan blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.

“And May 14 is their political coup attempt.”

Splintered society 

Erdogan continues to be lionised across more conservative swathes of Turkey for unshackling religious restrictions and bringing modern homes and jobs to millions of people through construction and state investment.

Turkey is now filled with hospitals and interconnected with airports and highways that stimulate trade and give the vast country a more inclusive feel.

He empowered conservative women by enabling them to stay veiled in school and in civil service — a right that did not exist in the secular state created from the Ottoman Empire’s ashes in 1923.

And he won early support from Turkey’s long-repressed Kurdish minority by seeking a political solution to their armed struggle for an independent state that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

But his equally passionate detractors point to a more authoritarian streak that emerged with the violent clampdown on protests in 2013 — and became even more apparent with sweeping purges he unleashed after the failed 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan turned against the Kurds and jailed or stripped tens of thousands of people of their state jobs on oblique “terror” charges that sent chills through Turkish society.

His penchant for campaigning and gift for public speaking enabled him to keep winning at the polls.

But the current vote is turning into his toughest because of a huge economic crisis that erupted in late 2021.

Democratic traditions 

Erdogan’s biggest problems started when he decided to defy the rules of economics by slashing interest rates to fight inflation.

The lira lost more than half its value and inflation hit an eye-popping 85 per cent since his experiment began.

Millions lost their savings and fell into deep debt.

Polls show the economy worrying Turks more than any other issue — a point not lost on Kilicdaroglu.

The 74-year-old former civil servant pledges to restore economic order and bring in vast sums from Western investors who fled the chaos of Erdogan’s more recent rule.

Kilicdaroglu’s party will send out 300,000 monitors to Turkey’s 50,000 polling stations to guarantee a fair outcome on election day.

Opposition security pointman Oguz Kaan Salici sounded certain about a smooth transition should Erdogan lose.

“Power will change hands the way it did in 2002,” he said of the year Erdogan’s party first won.

A Western diplomatic source pointed to Turkey’s strong tradition of respecting election results.

Erdogan’s own supporters turned against him when the Turkish leader tried to annul the opposition’s victory in 2019 mayoral elections in Istanbul.

But the source observed a note of worry among Erdogan’s rank and file.

“For the first time, [ruling party] deputies are openly evoking the possibility of defeat,” the source said.

BEIRUT — Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Turkish border guards of shooting, torturing and using excessive force against Syrians seeking to flee their war-racked country into neighbouring Turkey.

It urged Ankara to investigate border guards, hold those responsible for "grave human rights violations, including unlawful killings" to account, and end "longstanding impunity for these abuses".

“Turkish border guards are indiscriminately shooting at Syrian civilians on the border... as well as torturing and using excessive force against asylum seekers and migrants trying to cross,” the New York-based rights group said in a statement.

Syria’s war since 2011 has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions.

Syria shares a long border with Turkey, which hosts some 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees, according to the UN refugee agency.

“Turkey’s generous hosting of large numbers of Syrians does not absolve it of its obligations to respect the rights of others seeking protection at its borders,” HRW said.

It cited a March 11 incident in which border guards had “intercepted and tortured a group of eight Syrians who had attempted to cross into Turkey... killing a boy and one man” and returning the others to Syria.

“Turkish gendarmes and armed forces in charge of border control routinely abuse and indiscriminately shoot at Syrians along the Syrian-Turkish border, with hundreds of deaths and injuries recorded in recent years,” said HRW’s Hugh Williamson.

“Arbitrary killings of Syrians are particularly egregious and part of a pattern of brutality by Turkish border guards that the government has failed to curb or investigate effectively.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Turkish border guards had shot dead 12 Syrians and wounded 20 others since the start of the year.

“While Turkey is entitled to secure its border with Syria, it must do so in compliance with international law and in particular its human rights obligations,” HRW said, urging Ankara to “urgently conduct a full review” of border security policy.

Despite officially closing its frontier with Syria, Turkey over the years has regularly allowed access for humanitarian and medical reasons, and at times has allowed Syrians to return home for family visits during major holidays.

But since a devastating February 6 earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing thousands, Ankara has reinforced border restrictions.

KHARTOUM — The Sudanese army pounded paramilitaries in the capital Khartoum with air strikes Thursday while deadly fighting flared in Darfur, as the clock ticked down on a fragile US-brokered ceasefire now in its final full day.

Ahead of the expiry of a three-day truce at midnight (2200 GMT), the army said late Wednesday it had agreed to talks in Juba, capital of neighbouring South Sudan, on extending it "at the initiative of IGAD", the East African regional bloc.

There have been multiple truce efforts since fighting broke out on April 15 between Sudan's regular army led by General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. All have failed.

The fighting has continued despite the US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday, with warplanes patrolling the skies over the capital's northern suburbs as fighters on the ground have exchanged artillery and heavy machinegun fire, witnesses said.

Burhan agreed on Wednesday to the IGAD proposal for talks on extending the truce by a further 72 hours, the army added.

The RSF's response to the proposal remains unclear.

At least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting, according to health ministry figures, although the real death toll is likely much higher.

The doctors' union said at least eight civilians had been killed in Khartoum alone on Wednesday despite the truce.

More than two thirds of hospitals in the country were out of service, the union said Thursday, including 14 that had been struck during the fighting.

Beyond the capital, fighting has flared in the provinces, particularly in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

Clashes raged for a second day in the West Darfur capital Geneina, witnesses said, adding civilians were seen fleeing to the nearby border with Chad.

“We are locked up at home and too afraid to go out so we can’t assess the scale of the damage,” said a resident who asked to remain anonymous for his safety.

“The heavy fighting began from 24 April,” he said, confirming severe damage to hospitals and public buildings and looting across the city.

On Wednesday the United Nations humanitarian agency said the fighting in West Darfur had disrupted nutrition to “an estimated 50,000 acutely malnourished children”.

The violence has trapped many civilians in their homes, where they have endured severe shortages of food, water and electricity.

The UN has said as many as 270,000 people could flee into Sudan’s poorer neighbours South Sudan and Chad.

Other Sudanese have sought refuge in Egypt to the north and Ethiopia to the east, but both entail long and potentially dangerous journeys overland.

Speaking at the Egyptian border, 50-year-old refugee Ashraf called on the warring sides to “end the war... because this is your own conflict, not that of the Sudanese people”.

Cambridge University academic Sharath Srinivasan warned the mass movement of people across Sudan’s borders threatened to de-stabilise already fragile governments in neighbouring countries.

“If the armed confrontation between these two forces protracts — or worse, if it draws in other armed rebel groups across the country — this could quickly become one of the worst humanitarian crises in the region and risk spilling over,” he told US news outlet Politico.

War crimes 

suspect escapes 

Foreign governments have taken advantage of the fragile truce to get thousands of their citizens out but some have warned their evacuation efforts are dependent on the lull in fighting holding.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly urged Britons and their relatives in Sudan to use evacuation flights while they are still available before the ceasefire ends.

A Saudi evacuation ship docked in the Red Sea port of Jeddah Thursday carrying 187 Sudan evacuees from 25 countries, including the United States, Russia and Turkey, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

It was the eighth such crossing organised by Saudi Arabia since the start of the fighting and took the total evacuated to the kingdom so far to 2,544, only 119 of them Saudis, the ministry said.

As lawlessness has gripped Sudan, there have been several jailbreaks, including from the high security Kober prison where top aides of ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir were held.

Among those who have escaped is Ahmed Harun, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 2003 Darfur conflict.

Harun’s escape sparked fears of the involvement of Bashir loyalists in the ongoing fighting.

The army said the ousted dictator was not among those who escaped but had been moved to a military hospital before the fighting erupted.

Daglo’s RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia, accused of carrying out atrocities against civilians during Bashir’s brutal suppression of ethnic minority rebels in Darfur in the mid-2000s.

Bashir was toppled by the military in April 2019 following civilian mass protests that raised hopes for a transition to democracy.

The two generals had together seized power in a 2021 coup, but later fell out, most recently over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.