Heavy Clashes Rock Sudan’s Capital Despite Truce Extension

Date: 28 April 2023 - 22:32

News ID: ۱۱۴۴۰۸

CAIRO (AP) — Heavy explosions and gunfire rocked Sudan’s capital, Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman early Friday, residents said, despite the extension of a fragile truce between the county’s two top generals whose power struggle has killed hundreds.

After two weeks of fighting that has turned the capital into a war zone and thrown Sudan into turmoil, a wide-ranging group of international mediators — including African and Arab nations, the UN and the United States — were intensifying their pressure on the rival generals to enter talks on resolving the crisis.

So far, however, they have managed to achieve only a series of fragile temporary cease-fires that failed to stop clashes but created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate thousands of their citizens by land, air and sea.

In a sign of the persistent chaos, Turkey said one of its evacuation planes was hit by gunfire outside Khartoum with no casualties on Friday, hours after both sides accepted a 72-hour truce extension, apparently to allow foreign governments complete the evacuation of their citizens.

Fierce clashes with frequent explosions and gunfire continued Friday in Khartoum’s upscale neighborhood of Kafouri, where the military earlier used warplanes to bomb its rivals, the Rapid Support Forces, residents said. Clashes were also reported around the military’s headquarters, the Republican Palace and the area close to the Khartoum international airport. All these areas have been flashpoints since the war between the military and the RSF erupted on April 15.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have reportedly opened fire on a Turkish evacuation plane as it was landing at an airport outside Khartoum amid fighting between rivaling groups to seize power despite a truce signed between Sudan’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF head Hamdan Dagalo.

Sudan’s regular army announced on Friday that the Turkish plane had come under RSF fire as it was landing at the Wadi Seyidna airport, adding that the Turkish aircraft’s fuel system was being repaired after sustaining damage in the attack.

RSF has denied the allegations, claiming Sudan’s army was “spreading lies” to damage the paramilitary forces’ image.

“Our forces have remained strictly committed to the humanitarian truce that we agreed upon since midnight, and it is not true that we targeted any aircraft in the sky of Wadi Seyidna in Omdurman,” the RSF said in a statement.

However, the Turkish government confirmed the attack against its C-130 evacuation plane. Ankara’s defense ministry said there had been no injuries reported in the attack.

Over the past 14 days of pummeling each other, the military led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the RSF led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have each failed to deal a decisive blow to the other in their struggle for control of Africa’s third largest nation.