Sudan’s war between rival generals entered its third month today with no sign of ending, as warplanes bombed a southern city for the first time on Wednesday, while the armed forces accused the paramilitaries of “kidnapping and assassinated” the governor of West Darfur state.

The air force carried out “airstrikes in El Obeid for the first time”, a town 350km south of the capital Khartoum, “surrounded by paramilitary forces since the outbreak of fighting”, witnesses told AFP.

At the same time, the Sudanese army accused the Rapid Support Force (RSF) of “abducting and murdering” the governor of the state of West Darfur, Hamish Abdullah Abakar, speaking of “brutal action”.

The killing adds “one more line to the list of barbaric crimes committed against the entire Sudanese people” by the paramilitaries, the Sudanese army said on Facebook.

The governor’s death could not be independently confirmed.

The hostilities that broke out on April 15 have so far been fought mainly in Khartoum, the capital of five million people, and in the vast Darfur region (to the west).

The war between the armed forces of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in power in Sudan after the 2021 coup, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, or “Khameti”, the junta’s deputy leader turned its sworn enemy, has claimed the lives of at least 1,800 people, according to the latest estimate by the non-governmental organization ACLED, while uprooting 2.2 million civilians, according to UN figures.

Of these, more than a million lived in Khartoum, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

More than 528,000 Sudanese became refugees, according to the IOM, which is part of the United Nations system.

For those who did not leave, there is now “no food, no water, no medicine,” Ahmed Taha, a resident of Khartoum, told AFP. “We don’t have anything anymore. The country is ruined. Everywhere you look, you see bomb craters and bullet marks.”

Summit to raise aid for Sudan

For weeks, Saudi Arabia and the US have been mediating talks between the rival sides, hosted in Jeddah, aimed at securing a ceasefire.

But the cease-fire agreements that were announced to have been concluded were never observed and humanitarian aid remained blocked or distributed in very insufficient quantities to civilians.

25 of the 45 million inhabitants of Sudan – one of the poorest countries in the world – are now dependent on humanitarian aid to survive, the UN says.

Saudi Arabia announced the day before Tuesday that it will organize on Monday, June 19, an international meeting dedicated to aid in Sudan.

For his part, the head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) in Sudan complained yesterday Friday that “only 20% of the health facilities are still functioning in Khartoum”.

Entire districts of the capital are without water, while electricity is only available for a few hours each week.

The World Health Organization (WHO) “strongly condemned” yesterday Wednesday the “increasing attacks against health facilities”. He emphasized that from April 15 to June 8, 46 such attacks resulted in 8 deaths and 18 injuries.

“We have been suffering because of this war for two months,” said Soha Abdelrahman, a resident of Khartoum, adding that Darfur towns such as El Jenaina and Nyala are in a “state of siege”.

“Crimes against humanity”

The head of the United Nations mission in Sudan, the German diplomat Volker Pertes, said yesterday Tuesday that he is “particularly concerned” by the violence in Darfur, which may constitute “crimes against humanity”.

“Widescale attacks against civilians, because of their ethnic and racial origins, by Arab militias and armed men in IDF uniforms are very worrying and, if verified, may amount to crimes against humanity,” he added.

The Ummah party, the country’s largest, said yesterday that El Jenaina, the capital of West Darfur, had turned into a “devastation zone”, calling on international organizations to send aid.

He spoke of a “crime”, adding more than 1,000 people have been killed in the “siege” of the city and “systematic violence against civilians”.

In the 2000s, Darfur was wracked by a civil war that killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million civilians, according to the UN.