Sudan’s factions say they agree to extend truce but fighting goes on

FOOD SCARCE

The conflict has limited food distribution in the vast nation, Africa’s third largest, where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.

The top UN aid official in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, said “very little can be done” in terms of humanitarian assistance.

“We’re extremely worried about food supply,” Dieng told reporters in New York via phone from Port Sudan where most senior UN staff had relocated.

The Sudan Doctors’ Union said 60 of 86 hospitals in conflict zones had stopped operating.

Many foreigners remain stuck in Sudan despite the evacuation of thousands. Sudanese civilians, who have been struggling to find food, water and fuel, were streaming out of Khartoum.

Some 16,000 people have entered Egypt from Sudan including 14,000 Sudanese citizens, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said. The UN says some 20,000 refugees have already gone to Chad.

At International University of Africa in Khartoum, where thousands of students waited to leave, food is running out, there is no water for toilets and showers and the power has gone, said Nigerian law student Umar Yusuf Yaru, 24.

“Even as we sit here, almost everywhere you can hear gunshots. We are not safe here,” Yaru said via Zoom, as some female students could be heard crying in the background.

Frictions had been building for months between Sudan’s army and the RSF, whose 2021 coup came two years after a popular uprising toppled long-ruling Islamist autocrat Omar al-Bashir.