Gunfire and explosions continue Thursday, the eve of Eid al-Fitr, in Khartoum, as the international community tries to extract a cease-fire from the leaders of the army and the Rapid Support Forces in their struggle for power in Sudan.

In the city of more than five million people, families are rushing onto the roads to flee air strikes, gunfire and street battles that have killed more than 270 civilians since Saturday and are concentrated in Khartoum and Darfur in the west.

Dozens of kilometers away from the capital, life continues as normal, and houses open to receive the displaced, who arrive in a state of shock, in their cars or on foot for hours, as the price of petrol has risen to ten dollars per liter in one of the poorest countries in the world.

In order to reach a safe place, they were subjected to questions and searches by men stationed at control points of the Rapid Support Forces of Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hamidti, and the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of Sudan since the coup led by the two men in 2021.

In particular, they had to advance in their march amid corpses on the outskirts of the road, armored vehicles and small vehicles charred after being burned in battles with heavy weapons, and avoid the most dangerous areas that could be monitored from afar from the thick black smoke columns.
Since the power struggle that has been lurking for weeks between the two parties turned into a fierce battle on Saturday, the situation seems ambiguous for the 45 million Sudanese.

And the two parties do not stop making promises of truces that have not been fulfilled.

Officials from the United Nations, the African Union, the League of Arab States and other regional organizations will meet again Thursday to call for a ceasefire as Muslims around the world prepare to celebrate Eid al-Fitr on Friday or Saturday.

In the rubble-strewn streets, it is impossible to tell who actually controls the country's key institutions.
Both sides make declarations of victories and accusations against the other. But no one can check what is being circulated on social networks because the risk is there.

Witness doctors stated that the Air Force, which targets the bases and sites of the Rapid Support Forces deployed in populated areas in Khartoum, does not hesitate to drop bombs on hospitals sometimes.

The independent Sudan Doctors Syndicate said that within five days, "seventy percent of 74 hospitals in Khartoum and areas affected by the fighting have ceased service" because they were bombed, lack medical supplies and staff, or because fighters took control of them and expelled paramedics and the wounded.

Most humanitarian organizations have had to suspend aid, which is essential in a country where more than one in three people go hungry in normal times.

Since Saturday in Khartoum, many families have exhausted their last supplies and are wondering when supply trucks will be able to enter the city.

Three WFP staff were killed in Darfur at the start of the fighting. The United Nations no longer counts the "looting and attacks" on its stocks and staff, and condemns "sexual violence against humanitarian workers".

The people of Khartoum had to choose one of two evils: either to stay in a city where there was no electricity and running water and at any moment a stray bullet could penetrate a wall or a window, or to leave amidst gunfire and expect their homes to be taken over and everything they could not carry looted.

This comes while the Sudanese have not forgotten the battles and atrocities that cost former tyrannical President Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019, two arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court on charges of committing "war crimes", "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" in Darfur.

During the Darfur war that broke out in 2003, Bashir Dagalo authorized the scorched earth policy while Al-Burhan was one of his army commanders.
The Rapid Support Forces, established in 2013, includes thousands of former Janjaweed and Arab militants recruited by Omar al-Bashir to fight this war.

Amid this chaos, Egypt managed to evacuate 177 of its soldiers who were captured by the Rapid Support Forces while they were participating in training with the army at a military base in northern Sudan.

They left Sudan on Wednesday evening in "four Egyptian military planes," according to the Sudanese army. On Thursday evening, the Egyptian army did not confirm their departure or arrival.