April, 20 (KDN),KHARTOUM, -Shootings erupt in Sudan’s capital during Eid al-Fitr,Gunfire screamed through residential areas of Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Friday, marking the start of the Muslim celebration of Eid al Fitr, after the army deployed on foot for the first time in its almost week-long battle with a paramilitary force.
Witnesses stated soldiers and gunmen from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shot at each other throughout the city’s north, west, and center, even during the call for special early morning Eid prayers.
Hundreds of people have been killed as a result of the ongoing warfare. Foreign governments, including the United States, have been unable to evacuate their citizens from Sudan in the absence of a ceasefire.
International efforts to mediate a three-day truce and allow civilians to flee to safety have so far failed.
Instead, the army appeared to launch a new phase of battle on the ground, engaging the RSF in residential areas, after previously relying primarily on air strikes around the capital, with fiercer clashes in central Khartoum.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said on Thursday he saw “no other option but the military solution” to the power struggle with the paramilitary force that erupted into violence last weekend.
The conflict between two previously allied leaders of the ruling military junta, army chief Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, risks drawing in Sudan’s neighbours and could play into regional competition between Russia and the United States.
The thud of heavy weaponry could be heard across Khartoum and its Nile sister cities, together one of Africa’s biggest urban areas. Army troops brandishing semi-automatic weapons were greeted by cheers on one street, footage released by the military on Friday showed.
Reuters verified the location of the video, in the north of the city, but could not immediately verify when it was filmed.
The World Health Organization said at least 413 people have already been killed and thousands injured in the conflict, which has tipped Sudan into a humanitarian disaster, with hospitals under attack and up to 20,000 people fleeing into neighbouring Chad.
Thousands more Sudanese fled Khartoum on Friday, moving south to Al Gezira state, or north to River Nile state, with some seeking to go onward to Egypt.
Even before the conflict, about a quarter of Sudan’s people were facing acute hunger, with children especially affected. The U.N. World Food Programme halted its Sudan operation, one of its largest, on Saturday after three of its workers were killed.
