Fighting in Sudan entered its second week today, with clashes between the regular army and paramilitaries already killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands, while calls for a ceasefire have so far fallen on deaf ears.

The powerful explosions that rocked Khartoum during the night for the past few days were reduced yesterday, but in the morning the exchanges of fire started again, according to eyewitnesses.

Clashes broke out on April 15 between the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader after a 2021 coup, and his former deputy and current rival, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Force. (DTY-RSF).

The army announced on Friday that it had “accepted a ceasefire for three days” on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had called on the warring sides to agree to a ceasefire.

General Dagallo said in a statement that he “discussed the current crisis” with Guterres, mainly the adoption of a “humanitarian ceasefire, (the creation of) safe passages and the protection of humanitarian workers.”

The two previous 24-hour ceasefires announced earlier this week were also not observed.

Dead and hungry

In Khartoum, a city of five million people, the conflict has upended the lives of people, who remain locked in their homes, without electricity and drinking water amid a sweltering heat. Some tried to get out to find food or to try to leave the city.

Khartoum is the epicenter of the fiercest fighting, with airstrikes, tanks in the streets and gunfire in densely populated districts.

But the violence has spread throughout the country.

In Darfur, one of Sudan’s poorest regions, “the situation is catastrophic,” according to a doctor from the organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

At the same time, plans are being drawn up to remove foreign citizens from Sudan: the US, South Korea and Japan have deployed armed forces in neighboring countries, and the EU is considering taking similar measures.

Yesterday the State Department announced that the situation is still very dangerous and does not allow the removal of American embassy personnel. Immediately DTY, very active on social media, responded that they are “ready to open all airports in Sudan” so that “friendly countries that want to remove their citizens” can do so.

A report published yesterday by the World Health Organization speaks of 413 dead and 3,551 injured.

The violence risks plunging even more people into hunger as 15 million people in Sudan, a third of the country’s population, are in need of aid, according to the World Food Program (WFP).

Analysts worry that countries in the region will be drawn into the conflict. Emergency measures must be taken to prevent the conflict from turning “into a full-blown civil war”, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned.