A humanitarian disaster is taking place in Sudan because of the civil war, with cease-fires being announced and not kept one after the other.

Airstrikes, gunfire and explosions rocked Khartoum again on Monday, despite the announcement of a ceasefire in the fighting between the army and paramilitaries that has plunged Sudan into a humanitarian situation approaching “collapse”, according to the UN. The fighting has claimed lives to 528 people, while the injured amount to 4,599according to the official figures, which seem above to fall far short of reality.

The EMU has record 75,000 displaced inside the country. At least 20,000 have fled to Chad, 6,000 to the Central African Republic and thousands more to South Sudan and Ethiopia.

A total of up to 270,000 people, according to a UN estimate, may have fled their homes to escape the fighting, which is affecting 12 of the 18 states in this country of 45 million people.

Residents of the capital, who have not left, remain entrenched in their homes trying to survive despite shortages of food, water and electricity.

Khartoum state has given “further leave” to civil servants, while police say they have been deployed to prevent looting.

Over Khartoum, the capital of five million people, “fighter planes are flying” while gunfire and explosions are heard in various districts, eyewitnesses told AFP.

the battles, broke out on April 15 between the two generals leading the country after their 2021 coup, trapping millions of Sudanese.

“The scale and speed with which events are unfolding in Sudan is unprecedented,” the UN, which sent its humanitarian affairs officer Martin Griffiths to the region, announced yesterday, Sunday.

“I’m on my way (…) to look at how we can provide immediate assistance” to residents, Griffiths said, adding that “the humanitarian situation is reaching a point of collapse” in the country, which is one of the poorest of the world.

The massive looting of offices and warehouses humanitarian aid “has used up most of our stocks,” he said.

Nevertheless, in a country where a third of the population suffered from hunger even before the war, the World Food Program (PAM) announced that it was “immediately lifting the suspension of its activities” which it had ordered after the deaths of three of his employees.

The head of the armed forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hamedi, had agreed to extend the three-day ceasefire at midnight yesterday, Sunday, after “the mediation of of the United States and Saudi Arabia,” according to the Sudanese armed forces.

But since the beginning of the conflict, truces have been announced to be breached soon after. According to experts, they only mean that the safe corridors for the removal of foreigners are maintained and that the negotiations, taking place abroad, continue.
So far the two generals have denied direct negotiations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed yesterday, Sunday, to land in Port Sudan, 850 kilometers east of Khartoum, a first plane loaded with eight tons of aid. This aid will allow the treatment of only “1,500 wounded”, warned.

Most of the country’s hospitals are not functioning. For those still operating, “the situation is unbearable” because materials are missing, Mazoub Saad Ibrahim, a doctor in Ad-Damir, north of Khartoum, told AFP.

Countries including France, Germany, Greece and the United States have turned away their nationals and other foreigners. Canada has ended its removals “due to dangerous conditions”.

The Arab League meets today in Cairo to discuss the situation in Sudan after the United Arab Emirates, an ally of General Daghlo according to experts, announced that it had invited the chief of the armed forces. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan met yesterday, Sunday, with an envoy of General Burhan.

Besides, Riyadh has asked for a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to be held on Wednesday.