Sudan’s Army Withdraws From Cease-Fire Talks

But even as the talks progressed, forces from the two sides continued to clash, with street fighting, drone attacks and airstrikes decimating the health care system and pushing civilians to continue to evacuate the capital, Khartoum, and the adjoining cities of Omdurman and Bahri. In recent days, the fighting also intensified in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State, according to residents. On social media, each side continued to accuse the other of breaking the cease-fire.

Renewed clashes have also torn through the western region of Darfur, pushing thousands of people to flee and cross into neighboring Chad. This is particularly true of El Geneina, a city in West Darfur where the health facilities have been shattered and all 86 gathering camps for displaced people have been razed to the ground, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. A communications blackout has also kept the region cut off from the wider world for more than a week, raising fears of unreported deaths and the unfolding of a dire humanitarian crisis.

The conflict, which began on April 15, has led to the killing of 865 people and the injury of 3,634 others, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Union. Almost 1.4 million people have been displaced, with 360,000 of them crossing into neighboring nations like Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.

Organizations for journalists and local activists have also accused the warring parties of increasingly targeting their members with home raids and arrests. Factories, banks and small businesses have been looted or destroyed, further damaging an economy that was already ailing from high inflation, spiking food prices and the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The United Nations said this past month that it would need $2.56 billion to assist those affected.

The army, controlled by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, were long on the same side. In 2019, they helped remove the dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who had held power for three decades. They also carried out a coup that toppled the civilian government in October 2021, effectively scuttling the country’s nascent efforts to transition to democratic rule.