Heavy fighting resumes in Khartoum after 24-hour ceasefire expires

Trapped residents took advantage of the lull to search for food or flee the city

Smoke rises above buildings behind a nearly deserted street in Khartoum on Saturday. AFP

Fighting resumed in Khartoum on Sunday, just hours after the expiry of a one-day ceasefire that brought the Sudanese capital’s residents rare respite from the violence.

Residents said the quiet of the past 24 hours was shattered by some of the heaviest fighting seen in weeks, with artillery shelling of positions held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in southern Khartoum and air strikes by the army's jet fighters.

A volunteer group monitoring the fighting said stray shells in southern Khartoum's Janoub El Hezam district killed at least 19 civilians on Sunday.

"We appeal to citizens to be careful and cautious in these tense times," said the group in a statement.

They also reported fighting in the district of Sharq El Nile, across the river from Khartoum, where heavy machine gun and anti-aircraft fire could be heard.

"We woke up to heavy fighting. We had not seen fighting of this intensity since the war began," said Othman Al Aqeb, a resident of Sharq El Nile's Al Haj Youssef district.

In Omdurman, which together with Bahri and Khartoum make up the Sudanese capital region around the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, the sound of explosions and gunfire rocked the densely populated district of Fatyihab, residents said.

They said the resumption of fighting immediately emptied the streets and forced shopkeepers to down shutters.

A woman buys vegetables at a market in Khartoum on Saturday. AFP

The 24-hour cessation of hostilities that expired at 6am on Sunday was brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia.

It was the latest in a series of largely ignored truces between the army and the RSF, whose eight-week-old conflict has turned the Sudanese capital into a war zone and sparked a major humanitarian crisis in the country.

Nearly two million people have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting that broke out on April 15. Of these nearly 500,000 crossed into neighbouring countries, mainly Egypt, Chad and South Sudan.

They include 200,000 who crossed the northern border into Egypt. Hundreds have been killed and thousands injured.

The influx of Sudanese refugees into Egypt prompted authorities in Cairo to toughen entry requirements. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that the new requirements were designed to better organise the influx of its “Sudanese brothers”, not limit their number.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abou Zeid said there were nearly five million Sudanese living in Egypt before the latest crisis.

The new entry conditions require that all Sudanese regardless of gender or age must obtain a visa in advance to enter Egypt. Previously, only men between the ages of 19 and 49 needed a visa, with everyone else getting one on arrival.

Smoke rises above buildings as people flee with some belongings in Khartoum on Saturday. AFP

The fighting between the army and the RSF followed weeks of heightened tension over plans for the army to quit politics and for the paramilitary group to be integrated into the armed forces.

These were part of a political blueprint to restore Sudan’s democratic transition, derailed by a military takeover in October 2021 and virtually ended by the outbreak of fighting.

The fighting has left millions of Khartoum residents trapped in the city with dwindling food supplies and enduring lengthy power and water supply cuts.

Most healthcare facilities have been rendered unusable, either because they were occupied by combatants or because of a lack of medical supplies.

The fighting has also led to a wave of looting blamed by residents on RSF fighters and criminal gangs.

The 24-hour ceasefire gave residents an opportunity to safely leave the city to seek refuge elsewhere in Sudan or in neighbouring countries.

The rush to leave led to several road accidents because of speed or congestion on the way out of the city, residents said.

The respite from the violence also allowed residents to check on loved ones, especially the elderly.

The Resistance Committees, a youth-based pro-democracy activist group, reported that the bodies of two elderly women were found at their home in the central Khartoum Two district, apparently days after their death.

Residents who ventured out of their homes witnessed widespread looting of stores, fuel depots and the homes of the tens of thousands who have already fled.

Some of the looting was done by civilians.

A video clip widely shared online shows three civilians walking out of a supermarket with looted food. They were intercepted by an RSF fighter.

“What can we do? We have no money and there’s no work. We need to feed our families,” one of the men told the RSF fighter, pleading with him to let them go.