Conflict-torn Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could destabilize the entire region, the United Nations warned on Sunday, after an airstrike on a residential area killed around 20 civilians.
The Health Ministry reported “22 civilian deaths and a large number of wounded” from what it described as an airstrike on Saturday on Khartoum’s sister city, Omdurman, in Dar al- Salam, which means “House of Peace” in Arabic.
After nearly three months of war between rival generals in Sudan, the airstrike is the latest incident to spark outrage.
Around 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict, survivors have reported a wave of sexual violence and witnesses have spoken of ethnically targeted killings. There has been widespread looting and the UN has warned of possible crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.
A video posted by the Ministry of Health on Facebook showed apparently dismembered bodies lying partly covered on the ground after the airstrike. Several women were among the victims.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting the regular army, claimed the “airstrikes” had left 31 people dead.
Residents contacted by AFP also confirmed an airstrike but on Sunday the armed forces issued a statement “clarifying that the air force did not treat any hostile targets in Omdurman yesterday”.
Since the start of the war, paramilitaries have established bases in residential areas and have been accused of forcing civilians from their homes.
Witnesses on Sunday reported fresh airstrikes near the presidential palace in central Khartoum, as well as machine gun clashes and artillery fire in the south of the city.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday condemned the airstrike in Omdurman, which he said “would have killed at least 22 people” and injured dozens, his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a statement. communicated.
Guterres “remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region,” Haq said.
– ‘Dangerous and disturbing’ –
Sudan, in northeast Africa, borders other poor countries with a history of turmoil.
Nearly three million people have been uprooted by the fighting in Sudan, of whom nearly 700,000 have fled to neighboring countries, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The UN and African blocs have warned of an “ethnic dimension” to the conflict in the western Darfur region, where the US, Norway and Britain have blamed the RSF and allied militias for most widespread violations.
Concentrated in Darfur and the capital Khartoum, fighting has also been reported in Blue Nile state, near Ethiopia, as well as in Southern Kordofan state.
Overnight from Saturday to Sunday, residents of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan and a trading center south of Khartoum, reported renewed fighting in their area.
“There is a complete disregard for humanitarian law and human rights which is dangerous and worrying,” Haq said, expressing support for the efforts of the African Union and the East African bloc IGAD to put an end to the Sudanese crisis.
On Monday, the leaders of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan – the IGAD members in charge of the Sudan file – are due to meet in Addis Ababa.
Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been invited but neither side has confirmed their attendance.
Several Sudanese civilian figures are however already there, “in order to accelerate peace efforts”, declared Khalid Omer Yousif, dismissed from the government in 2021 when Daglo and Burhan led a coup, before their estrangement.
Many ceasefires during the war were announced and ignored.
bur/it/fz