Sudan conflict forces more than 100,000 people to flee the country | World News

The war in Sudan has forced 100,000 people to flee its borders and the fighting, now in its third week, is creating a humanitarian crisis, with gunfire and explosions echoing across the capital despite another ceasefire, UN officials said Tuesday.

The conflict has the potential to turn into a wider catastrophe as SudanIn a country where two-thirds of the population already depends on outside aid, impoverished neighbors deal with refugee austerity and fight to hinder aid deliveries.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said Cairo would support talks between rival military factions in Sudan but also “be careful not to interfere in their internal affairs”.

“The whole region could be affected,” he warned in an interview with a Japanese newspaper on Tuesday, when an envoy of the commander-in-chief of Sudan’s army, which was leading one of the warring parties at the time, met Egyptian officials in Cairo.

United Nations U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths is scheduled to visit Sudan on Tuesday, officials have said, but the exact time has yet to be determined.

The United Nations World Food Program said on Monday it was resuming work in safer parts of the country after an earlier pause in the clashes in which some WFP staff were killed.

“The risk is that this will not only be a Sudanese crisis, but a regional one,” said Michael Dunford, WFP East Africa director.

Commanders of the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) show no signs of backing down as part of an internationally-backed transition to free elections and a civilian government, but neither appears to be securing a quick victory. That raises the specter of a long-running conflict that could attract outside power.

Early Tuesday, black smoke could be seen hanging over the capital Khartoum, which sits at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. Witnesses said airstrikes hit Bahri on the east bank, while clashes also erupted in Omdurman in the west.

Hundreds of people were killed in fighting between the army led by General Abdul Fattah Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti. Both sides have accused the other of violating a series of ceasefire agreements.

The army used air power against RSF forces pushing deep into populated areas of Khartoum, damaging swaths of the capital region and reigniting conflict in Sudan’s far west Darfur region.

Dunford of the World Food Program told Reuters that Port Sudan is the main entry point for aid to many countries in the region, with tens of thousands fleeing Khartoum seeking evacuation abroad.

“Unless we stop fighting, unless we stop now, the humanitarian impact will be enormous,” he said.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua said Kenya had offered to use its airport and airstrip near the border with South Sudan as part of an international humanitarian effort.

Aid

While Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it has sent some aid to Khartoum, aid that has arrived in Port Sudan and given to other aid agencies is still waiting for safe passage to Khartoum, a journey of about 800 kilometers ( 500 miles).

Some 330,000 Sudanese have been displaced inside Sudan by the war, according to the United Nations migration agency.

Thousands of Sudanese are trying to leave the country, many across the borders with Egypt, Chad and South Sudan. The United Nations warned on Monday that 800,000 people could eventually leave, including refugees temporarily living in Sudan.

At the border with Egypt, where more than 40,000 people have crossed in the past two weeks, delays have left refugees waiting for days to pass after paying hundreds of dollars to travel north from Khartoum.

Foreign countries have carried out their own evacuations, with air and long-distance convoys from outside the capital to Port Sudan, where ships ferried them abroad.

Evacuations have ended in most European countries. Russia said Tuesday it had evacuated 200 of its citizens.

army and RSF Power has been shared since a coup in 2021 but has been at loggerheads over the timetable for the transition to civilian rule and moves to integrate the RSF into the regular army.

Since 2003, the two have fought side by side in an uprising in Darfur that has killed more than 300,000 people and sparked allegations of genocide.