On Friday, violent battles erupted in the streets of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum , between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, despite calls for a truce for civilians on the first day of Eid al-Fitr .

Witnesses spoke of gunfire and air strikes before sunrise, as has happened every morning since April 15, in battles that resulted in "413 dead and 3,551 wounded," according to a new toll from the World Health Organization.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors confirmed in a post on Facebook that "on the night of Eid al-Fitr, several areas of Khartoum were bombed and are still being exposed to shelling and mutual clashes between the army forces and the Rapid Support Forces." She added that these confrontations "left destruction to buildings, facilities and public property."

Diplomatic contacts intensified in an attempt to silence the guns, at least during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Friday that he cut short his visit to the Asia-Pacific region for several days "because of the situation in Sudan."

On Thursday, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army commander and head of the transitional sovereign council in Sudan since the 2021 coup, announced that he had received contacts from a number of leaders of the countries of the region - especially South Sudan and Ethiopia - and from officials abroad - headed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. American Anthony Blinken.

All of these leaders called on Al-Burhan to stop the fighting on Eid Al-Fitr against the Rapid Support Forces led by Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed Hemedti, the second in power since the coup.

The Rapid Support Forces announced their "acceptance of a 72-hour truce" starting at 4:00 GMT to give a respite to the Sudanese who are still caught in the crossfire.

In Khartoum, Abdel Wahed Othman, 53, criticizes "those who love power too much." "They are fighting for power but they don't care about the poor who don't have water or electricity and find it difficult to feed themselves," he says.

At the same time, Lieutenant General Al-Burhan delivered a speech on state television to the Sudanese on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, in his first appearance since the fighting began on April 15. Al-Burhan did not refer in his speech to any truce.

Al-Burhan, who appeared in a military uniform, said, sitting in an office between two flags of Sudan, "Our country passes this year on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr, and our country was hit by a very serious wound."

He added, "There remains constant hope that we, along with our great people, will overcome this ordeal and come out of it more united, stronger and coherent, and our chant will grow stronger: 'One army, one people'."

"Your armed forces are advancing in defeating the rebels," he said, stressing that he is "confident in overcoming this ordeal with wisdom and strength, in a manner that preserves the security and unity of the country and enables us to secure a transition to civilian rule."

For its part, the United States announced Thursday that it is deploying troops in East Africa in anticipation of a possible evacuation of US embassy staff in Sudan. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that these additional US forces would be deployed in Djibouti, in East Africa.
Khartoum airport has been closed since Saturday, while embassies call on their nationals to report their whereabouts, but to stay in their homes.

After talks he held with the president of the African Union and other international leaders, "everyone was convinced that the truce is urgent in Sudan," according to the US Secretary of State, who called on the two competing parties to try to negotiate again in order to stop the fighting, which is concentrated especially in Khartoum and Darfur (west).
The telephone network only works intermittently.

Khartoum's five million residents live their seventh day amid air strikes, explosions and street clashes. Many families have run out of provisions and no longer have electricity or running water. A large number of them are trying to flee between the checkpoints of the Rapid Support Forces and the army, amid corpses scattered on both sides of the road.

Since the conflict between the two generals turned into a pitched battle, a large number of civilians fled abroad as well. The United Nations stated that between ten thousand and twenty thousand people, especially women and children, went to neighboring Chad.

The ongoing shootings also severely damaged new hospitals Thursday, according to the Doctors Syndicate. Four hospitals were hit in El Obeid, 350 km south of Khartoum.

Both sides are making declarations of victory and accusations against the other that cannot be verified on the ground due to the seriousness of the situation.

Doctors said that the air force, which targets the bases and sites of the Rapid Support Forces deployed in residential areas, does not hesitate to drop bombs, sometimes on hospitals.

The Doctors Syndicate stated that "seventy percent of 74 hospitals in Khartoum and the areas affected by the fighting have stopped working," either because they were bombed, due to a lack of medical supplies and staff, or because fighters took control of them and expelled the 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.

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 it condemns "sexual violence against humanitarian workers".

The think tank "International Crisis Group" warned that "neither Al-Burhan nor Daglo seems to want to surrender, so the situation may get worse."
He added that "a long-term conflict would be devastating for Sudan," the third largest producer of gold in Africa and one of the poorest countries in the world.

"Even if the army eventually regains control of the capital and Dagalo withdraws to Darfur, a civil war could break out," and with it "the possibility of destabilizing neighboring countries: Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya and South Sudan, which are already affected at various levels of violence," he said.

On the other side of the country, on the coast, dozens of demonstrators took to the streets in Port Sudan against what a banner said was "the presence of the UAE ambassador in eastern Sudan." Another banner read, "No to foreign interference."