Fighting persists in Sudan despite new truce as UN urges halt to violence

Sudan’s shaky ceasefire has remained in force as the rank-and-file members continue to fight, prompting the United Nation’s rights chief to urge the nation’s top generals to stop the “senseless violence.”

Witness accounts cited by news outlets on Wednesday said clashes between rival military factions could be heard overnight in parts of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

This is while a week-long ceasefire designed to allow for the delivery of aid and lay the ground for a more lasting truce has been in force since Monday.

The ceasefire agreed by Sudan’s warring factions entered into force hours after five weeks of intensive fighting that was to conclude after the country’s army launched huge airstrikes across the capital Khartoum against positions of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

However, local residents reported that the sound of clashes could still be heard overnight in Khartoum.

Residents of Omdurman, one of the three cities around the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers that make up Sudan’s greater capital, said there had been exchanges of fire late on Tuesday in several areas.

Heavy artillery fire could be heard near the Wadi Sayidna military base on the outskirts of the capital, they said.

Reacting to the continued fighting in Sudan, the United Nations human rights chief called on the country’s top military brass to end the conflict.

Volker Turk called on the two sides’ warring generals on Wednesday to stop the violence and spare the lives of civilians.

He said the conditions in Sudan were bad, describing the situation there as “heartbreaking”.

“General (Abdel Fattah) al-Burhan, General (Mohamed Hamdan) Dagalo, you must issue clear instructions, in no uncertain terms to all those under your command that …civilians must be spared and you must stop this senseless violence now,” Turk told a Geneva press briefing, directly addressing the two Sudanese generals.