Thursday, areas in Khartoum are witnessing bombardment from combat aircraft and attempts to confront them, despite reaching an agreement to stop the fighting that broke out between the two parties to the conflict about two weeks ago, while fighting rages in the troubled Darfur region in western Sudan.

Late on Wednesday night, the Sudanese army agreed in principle to an initiative by the Intergovernmental Organization for Development in East Africa (IGAD) to task the presidents of South Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti with working to resolve the current crisis.

According to a Sudanese army statement, the initiative included "extending the current truce for an additional 72 hours" and "dispatching a representative of the armed forces and another of the rebel militia to Juba for the purpose of negotiation."

For its part, the Rapid Support Forces have not yet responded to the proposal of the East African bloc.

The battles have been taking place since April 15 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Muhammad Hamdan Daglo, a merciless war on power, after they were allies since the 2021 coup, during which they overthrew civilians.

Eyewitnesses reported that the clashes continued during the past days, despite a US-brokered truce agreed on Tuesday. Warplanes are still flying over the capital, and fighters from both sides are engaged in fierce fighting with automatic rifles and heavy weapons.

The battles have so far killed at least 512 people and wounded thousands, according to a statement by the Federal Ministry of Health in Sudan, but the number of victims may be more than that as a result of the ongoing fighting.

The Sudanese Medical Syndicate also confirmed that 14 hospitals were bombed, and 19 medical facilities were out of service due to the clashes.
Outside Khartoum, violence has escalated in other parts of Sudan, including the restive Darfur region in the west of the country.

On Thursday, eyewitnesses reported in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, that "clashes took place between the army and the Rapid Support Forces for the second day in a row with various types of weapons."

El Geneina residents fled towards the Sudanese-Chadian border to avoid violence, the witnesses added.

Looting and burning of homes spread in El Geneina, according to a statement Wednesday by the United Nations, which said that "about 50,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition after food support was disrupted due to the fighting."

On his way to the border with neighboring Egypt, Ashraf, a Sudanese who fled Khartoum, called on the two feuding officers to "stop the war". "The Sudanese are suffering and they don't deserve this," the 50-year-old told AFP in the middle of the northern desert.

"It is your war, not the war of the Sudanese people," he added.

With the intensification of fighting in several Sudanese cities, a large number of those trapped in the country face severe shortages of food, water and electricity, as well as frequent interruptions in communication services.

The United Nations estimates the number of people fleeing due to the war in Sudan to neighboring countries such as South Sudan and Chad at about 270,000.

A large number of Sudanese also ventured out of the capital on long and arduous journeys to Egypt in the north and Ethiopia in the east.
The United Nations has received "reports of tens of thousands of people arriving in Central Africa, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan."

Foreign governments from around the world have in recent days organized land convoys, planes and ships to evacuate thousands of their citizens from the battle-torn country.

In this context, the French authorities announced Thursday that the French Navy had transferred nearly 400 foreigners from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, bringing the number of people evacuated by Paris since the beginning of the crisis to more than 900.

In London, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called on British citizens wishing to leave Sudan to leave "now". London had evacuated 536 people on Wednesday evening on six planes, according to the Foreign Office

Other flights are scheduled for Thursday, before the truce ends.

A state of complete chaos prevailed in Sudan in light of a fragile ceasefire, while Ahmed Haroun, an aide to the ousted former President Omar al-Bashir, announced on Tuesday that he had escaped from prison with other former officials. The army confirmed that Bashir himself was being held in a hospital where he was taken before the fighting began.

Harun was imprisoned in Kober prison in Khartoum. He is wanted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" in the Darfur region in western Sudan.

The army overthrew Omar Al-Bashir under the weight of massive popular protests against him in 2019, and arrested along with his aides and the most prominent pillars of his regime.

Al-Bashir was in the same prison. In 2021, the Sudanese authorities, in which civilians were participating at the time, signed an agreement with the International Criminal Court to extradite Al-Bashir and his aides, but the extradition process has not yet taken place.
Al-Burhan and Daglo carried out a coup in October 2021, during which civilians were overthrown.
Soon, a struggle for power emerged between them, leading to the bloody battles that erupted 13 days ago.