The United Nations warned on Friday of “intensified hostilities” ahead in Sudan, despite paramilitary forces endorsing a truce proposal from mediators after more than two years of war with the regular army.
“There is no sign of de-escalation,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“Developments on the ground indicate clear preparations for intensified hostilities, with everything that implies for its long-suffering people.”
On Thursday, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said they had accepted a truce plan put forward by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
However, the government, backed by the army, has yet to respond to the US-led mediators’ proposal, and explosions rocked the army-controlled capital Khartoum on Friday.
The conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and triggered a hunger crisis.
Less than two weeks ago, the RSF captured the city of El-Fasher, the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur, giving it control of all five state capitals in the vast western region, in addition to parts of the south.
The army controls most of Sudan’s north, east and centre.
El-Fasher’s fall was accompanied by reports of mass killings, sexual violence and looting, drawing international condemnation.
Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab said on Thursday that satellite imagery collected earlier this week showed the RSF had blocked a key civilian escape route from the city.
Doctors Without Borders warned Friday that the fate of hundreds of thousands who are still trapped in El-Fasher was unknown after satellite images from Yale’s HRL showed suspected mass graves.
According to the United Nations, about 70,000 people have fled El-Fasher to nearby towns, including Tawila, while the city had previously housed some 260,000.
“Our main concern is that though we have seen approximately 5,000 people coming out of El-Fasher towards Tawila, we don’t know where the other hundreds of thousands have gone,” newly elected MSF president Javid Abdelmoneim said.
There are also fears of further atrocities taking place as the conflict shifts into the oil-rich Kordofan region.
– ‘Living in fear’ –
In South Kordofan, a medical source told AFP on Friday that the RSF shelled a hospital in besieged Dilling the day before, killing five and injuring five more.
The Sudan Doctors’ Union said the attack also destroyed the facility’s radiology department.
Dilling, under RSF siege since June 2023, lies about 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of army-controlled El-Obeid, a key crossroads linking Darfur to Khartoum.
The army broke a two-year siege of El-Obeid in February, but the RSF has regrouped and is mounting a fresh push to seize Sudan’s central corridor.
A resident of the city, the capital of North Kordofan state, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that people “are living in fear” and “ready to leave at any moment”.
Much of the wider Kordofan region, meanwhile, faces a worsening humanitarian crisis.
The Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said Dilling is now at risk of famine, while South Kordofan’s capital, Kadugli, is already facing one.
– Khartoum blasts –
On Friday, explosions were heard in Khartoum and in Atbara, an army-held city around 300 kilometres to the north, witnesses told AFP.
Khartoum has experienced relative calm since the army regained control earlier this year, but the RSF have continued launching long-range drone attacks on military positions and infrastructure.
A resident in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, told AFP they were woken “around 2:00 am (0000 GMT) by the sound of … explosions” near a military base, while another reported hearing a drone overheard before a blast struck near a power station, causing an outage.
In Atbara, witnesses said anti-aircraft defences shot down several drones before dawn, sparking fires and explosions in the east of the city.
There were no immediate reports of casualties and neither the army nor the RSF commented on the blasts.
Despite the RSF’s announcement on Thursday that it accepted mediators’ plan for a ceasefire, analysts remain sceptical about the prospects for de-escalation.
Cameron Hudson of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies told AFP the RSF’s announcement “aims to distract from the atrocities… in El-Fasher and portray itself as more responsible than the army”.
No details of the ceasefire proposal have been made public, but a senior Saudi official told AFP that it calls for a “three-month truce”, during which both sides would be encouraged to hold talks in Jeddah on a permanent peace deal.
The UAE, one of the mediators, has been accused by the UN of supplying arms to the RSF, allegations it has repeatedly denied.
The Sudanese army, meanwhile, has received support from fellow mediators Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as from Turkey and Iran, according to observers.
ab-maf/smw/dcp
© Agence France-Presse
