More civilians risk dangerous escape as Sudan battles continue

Khartoum, Sudan (AFP):

Fighting continues in the Sudanese capital and a city to the south, residents say, pushing more people to undertake dangerous journeys to safety across the country’s borders.

Those unable to escape grapple with shortages of food and other essentials, surviving only thanks to Sudanese charity networks among friends and neighbours, as the United States expressed cautious optimism over talks to secure the safe delivery of aid.

More than 750 people have been killed in the fighting which has wounded more than 5,000, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

In El Obeid, the North Kordofan state capital about 350 kilometres (190 miles) southwest of Khartoum, residents on Wednesday also reported fighting and explosions.

Envoys from the warring generals have been meeting since Saturday in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah for “pre-negotiation talks” with the participation of the United States.

They are very narrowly focused “first on securing agreement on a declaration of humanitarian principles and then getting a ceasefire that is long enough to facilitate the steady delivery of badly needed services,” said Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s number three official.

“I talked to our negotiators . . . who are cautiously optimistic,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Kholood Khair, founder of the Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory, said that the delegations were in Jeddah “mostly to curry favour with the Saudis and the Americans”, rather than to credibly pursue an agreement.

Asked about potential sanctions, Nuland said the US administration would “look at appropriate targets in various categories, particularly if we cannot get these generals to allow the humanitarian aid and put their guns down.”

In the Washington hearing, several senators criticised Biden’s administration for not imposing sanctions ahead of the crisis and for focusing on the generals instead of pro-democracy forces.

Several aid workers have been killed in the fighting and humanitarian facilities ransacked.

Cindy McCain, World Food Programme executive director, said nearly 25 percent of the agency’s food has been looted.

Millions in need

Outside of Khartoum, the long-troubled Darfur region bordering Chad has seen some of the worst unrest.

“More than 250,000 people have been displaced in Darfur, where armed groups kill and attack civilians, loot premises and trucks of aid workers,” the Islamic Relief aid group reported.

In Zalingei, Central Darfur’s capital, the local market had been pillaged, Islamic Relief said.

Despite the dangers and challenges, the UN continues “to ramp up our efforts to respond to the crisis,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Wednesday.

On Wednesday an Emirati military plane arrived in Port Sudan with humanitarian supplies, after two Saudi Arabian aircraft loaded with aid landed there on Tuesday, AFP journalists said.