Heavy firing rang out in Khartoum late on Friday after Sudan’s army declared a three-day truce following almost a week of fighting with a rival paramilitary force, a witness told Reuters news agency.
The source of the firing was unclear, the witness said, adding air strikes were also heard from time to time.
Sudan’s army said it had agreed to the truce starting on Friday, to enable people to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, following almost a week of fighting between its troops and a rival paramilitary force.
“The armed forces hope that the rebels will abide by all the requirements of the truce and stop any military moves that would obstruct it,” an army statement said.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had agreed to the 72-hour truce earlier in the day.
Gunfire crackled without pause all day, punctuated by the thud of artillery and air strikes. Drone footage showed several plumes of smoke across the capital Khartoum and its Nile sister cities, together one of Africa’s biggest urban areas.
Soldiers and gunmen from both sides shot at each other in neighbourhoods across the city, after the army deployed on foot for the first time in its almost week-long fight with the RSF, including during the call for special early morning Eid prayers.
The fighting has killed hundreds, mainly in the capital and the west of Sudan, tipping the continent’s third-largest country — where about a quarter of people already relied on food aid — into a humanitarian disaster.
With the airport caught in the fighting and the skies unsafe, nations including the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Spain have been unable to evacuate embassy staff.
People who can get out are fleeing Sudan as the country appears to be spiralling toward civil breakdown with the army fighting a paramilitary force. Much of the country is already facing food and water shortages and the UN is warning the situation there is now catastrophic.
No evacuation plan for U.S. citizens
The White House said no decision yet had been made to evacuate American diplomatic personnel but the U.S. was preparing for such an eventuality if it becomes necessary.
The U.S. State Department said it has been in touch with several hundred private American citizens the government understands to be in Sudan.
But deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Friday U.S. citizens in Sudan should have no expectation of a U.S.-government co-ordinated evacuation from the country.
Patel told reporters at a press briefing that given the closure of Khartoum’s airport and the uncertain security situation in the country, citizens there should make their own arrangements to stay safe.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on Friday its readiness to partially open all of Sudan’s airports to air traffic to enable other countries to evacuate their nationals.
“The Rapid Support Forces affirm their full readiness to cooperate, coordinate and provide all facilities that enable expatriates and missions to leave the country safely,” RSF reported in a statement.
It is unclear to what extent the RSF controls Sudan’s airports.
Foreign citizens, aid workers killed
The State Department said without elaborating that one U.S. citizen in Sudan had been killed.
At least five aid workers have been killed, including three from the World Food Programme, which has since suspended its Sudan operation — one of the world’s largest food aid missions.
A worker at the International Organization for Migration was killed in the city of El Obeid on Friday, after his vehicle was hit by crossfire as he tried to move his family to safety.
The army has pressed forward, fighting the RSF on the ground after having previously stuck largely to air strikes and artillery shelling across the capital since the power struggle erupted last weekend.
In a statement, the army said it had begun “the gradual cleaning of hotbeds of rebel groups around the capital.”
‘I’m disappointed,’ said Shama-el Sidahmed, reacting to the Canadian government’s response so far to the Canadians trapped in Sudan as fighting intensifies. ‘We want a plan by the Canadian government … At least show that there’s a plan in place.’
Holiday marred by fear
The Eid al-Fitr holiday is usually a time for many residents of Sudan’s capital to visit relatives outside the city, which falls quiet. This year, those who can are making a frantic escape from Khartoum, driven out by war.
The clashes, which broke out in the final days of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn till dusk, have cut water and power supplies for long periods, turned the airport into a battleground and shut down most hospitals.
In many neighbourhoods of greater Khartoum, which has a population of more than 10 million, residents have been trapped in their homes, venturing out only to seek provisions at shops which have been hit by looting and where supplies have been dwindling.
Makram Waleed, a 25-year-old doctor, was hoping to leave Khartoum with his family but was worried about the dangers to his three younger sisters.
“The risk of leaving our house, leaving our belongings, is just way too hard to process,” he said.
Over the past week increasing numbers have sought to move to safer areas of the capital — though the military has closed bridges across the River Nile between Khartoum and its sister cities of Omdurman and Bahri.
Or they have charted a route out, most often to Gezira State to the south or River Nile State to the north, wheeling suitcases along the streets or balancing bags on their heads as they start their journeys.
Ahmed Mubarak, 27, said he felt “extreme anxiety” after the violence erupted on April 15 and before he decided to leave Khartoum on Thursday, taking with him only the clothes he was wearing.
“There were no buses, people were walking on foot, with their bags and moving. There were cars passing, but they were all private cars and all of them were full.”
Eventually he hitched a lift on a bus whose owner was volunteering to transport people out of the city, and made it all the way to Atbara, about 280 kilometres northeast of Khartoum, where he knocked on the door of his family home.
“They could not believe it. It was a very beautiful moment,” he said.
The Current16:34Fears of a civil war spread in Sudan
Sudan’s capital Khartoum erupted in violence this weekend. We discuss spreading fears of a civil war with Dr. Alaaeldin Nogoud, a surgeon who lives and works in Khartoum; and Khalid Medani, the chair of African studies and an associate professor of political science at McGill.
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