As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese in the capital Khartoum and other cities huddled in their homes for a third day, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.
At least 185 people had been killed and more than 1800 wounded since the fighting erupted, UN envoy Volker Perthes told reporters on Monday . The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.
“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in a southern district of Khartoum. Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The turmoil comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
The US, the UN and others have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – which forged close ties to the RSF as it sent thousands of fighters to support their war in Yemen – have also called for both sides to stand down. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said Cairo was in “constant contact” with both the army and the RSF, urging them to halt the fighting and return to negotiations.Satellite images show destroyed aeroplanes in Khartoum International Airport on Monday.The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell tweeted that the EU ambassador to Sudan “was assaulted in his own residency”, without providing further details. EU officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said.
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