Violent fighting in Khartoum endangers Sudanese civilians Sudan war news

Beirut, Lebanon On December 9, an army air attack hit a gas station in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens.

The army said it was targeting fighters from the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group with which it has been at war since April 2023.

Speaking weeks after the attack, Muhammad Kindasha, a doctor in the area, recalled treating people with severe burns at a nearby hospital.

Among them were men, women and children, which symbolizes the indiscriminate nature of the attacks committed by both sides in the Sudan war.

He told Al Jazeera: “The Rapid Support Forces do not care about civilians, nor does the army.”

Violence escalates

More than 26,000 people were killed from April 2023 to June 2024 in Khartoum State alone, and thousands more died from conflict-related causes such as disease and hunger, according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Since the army announced a major offensive to retake Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces on September 25, the humanitarian crisis has worsened.

Recent fighting has led to extrajudicial killings and indiscriminate attacks that have killed dozens of civilians and increased danger to local aid workers.

The army and the Rapid Support Forces were former partners who cooperated to sabotage the democratic transition after their former boss, President Omar al-Bashir, was ousted in popular protests in April 2019.

Four years later, the RSF and the army turned on each other in an attempt to take control. After the first year of fighting, the RSF captured most of Khartoum and appeared to have the upper hand in the conflict.

Then, in early October, the army retook several strategic neighborhoods and three bridges in the National Capital Region, which includes three cities, Khartoum, Khartoum Bahri and Omdurman.

Mohammed Othman, a Sudanese researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that as the fighting continues, civilian casualties appear to be increasing dramatically.

“Since October, there has been a significant escalation in violence,” he told Al Jazeera.

Othman added: “I think we are seeing more barrel bombs being used in Khartoum, as well as drones, missiles and ground missiles.”

Barrel bombs are unguided bombs packed with explosives and shrapnel and dropped randomly from helicopters and planes.

Throughout the war, human rights groups and UN experts accused both sides of abuses such as executing prisoners of war, carrying out summary killings and torturing detainees.

The RSF has been accused of ethnically cleansing communities in the western Darfur region and systematically raping women and girls, according to Human Rights Watch, Al Jazeera reports, and local observers.

Serious violations

After the army took over Khartoum’s Halfaya neighborhood in early October, most residents rejoiced at the end of the abuses and atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces over a year and a half.

However, reports soon emerged claiming that dozens of men suspected of belonging to the RSF had been killed after the army advanced.

“This is despicable and contravenes all human rights norms and standards,” Redouane Nouecer, the UN expert on Sudan, said in a statement.

“The incident happened while people were still celebrating that the army freed them,” said Mukhtar Atef, spokesman for the Emergency Response Room, a local relief organization helping civilians.

“The army killed these people… because they thought they were working with the Rapid Support Forces,” he told Al Jazeera from France, where he now resides.

Sudanese army spokesman Nabil Abdullah denied responsibility for the incident and said that the army never hits civilians, adding that RSF fighters sometimes pretend to be civilians when they are injured in air strikes.

“We do not commit violations against civilians. It is the militias (the Rapid Support Forces) that target civilians by killing them, displacing them, and looting and stealing their property,” Abdullah told Al Jazeera.

On December 10, the governor of Khartoum, allied with the army, said that the Rapid Support Forces 65 people were killed in Omdurman.

Eyewitnesses denounced the attack and described it as a “terrorist” act.

“Whenever the army advances on the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitaries respond by killing civilians,” said Badawi, a local aid worker who declined to give his last name due to the sensitivity of speaking to journalists in a war zone.

Al Jazeera sent questions via email to the RSF media office asking it to respond to reports that the RSF are deliberately targeting civilians. The media office did not respond at the time of publication.

Endangered and exhausted

Human rights monitors, NGOs and analysts accuse the army of preventing relief agencies from carrying out humanitarian operations in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces.

They also accuse the Rapid Support Forces of causing a hunger crisis by looting aid and food markets, attacking agricultural lands to destroy crops, imposing taxes and obstructing aid convoys.

“Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, along with their foreign supporters, are responsible for what constitutes the deliberate use of starvation, which constitutes crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law,” a panel of UN experts on Sudan He said In October.

Civilians in RSF areas depend almost entirely on emergency response teams, a network of community relief groups that have led the humanitarian response since the war began, local and international aid workers told Al Jazeera.

On Thursday, emergency relief teams collaborated with the World Food Program and UNICEF to bring 28 trucks loaded with life-saving aid.

Hajouj Kuka, spokesman for the emergency response teams in Khartoum, said that this is the first time that the World Food Program has delivered aid to the Rapid Support Forces areas in Khartoum from areas controlled by the army.

But both sides of the war are still targeting aid workers.

Atef, the ERR’s official spokesman, said civilians in Khartoum Bahri are particularly vulnerable now that the area has become an epicenter of the conflict.

He told Al Jazeera that of the 69 local aid workers killed in the war by the army and the Rapid Support Forces, at least 30 of them were from northern Khartoum.

Furthermore, Atef said, aid workers are struggling to evacuate civilians in northern Khartoum after the RSF commander ordered several neighborhoods – and thousands of people – to leave this month.

The roads outside Khartoum Bahri are dangerous due to army air attacks and the presence of Rapid Support Forces fighters, led by human rights groups. Charged with theft and random murder and Randomly raping women and girls.

An aid worker in northern Khartoum, whose identity was not published by Al Jazeera to protect the person, said: “There is a lot of indiscriminate army fire on the roads, and the presence of the Rapid Support Forces there… means that anything could happen to us.”

Safe exit?

The only safe route out of Khartoum Bahri is East Nile (East of the Nile), where aid workers are already working to accommodate thousands of people fleeing Gezira State, and where the Rapid Support Forces have carried out almost daily killings since their capture a year ago. Local activists and eyewitnesses said a while ago.

Atef said that the emergency response line was only able to evacuate about 200 people from Khartoum north to east of the Nile due to lack of resources, and he appealed to non-governmental organizations or United Nations agencies to support the emergency response line north of Khartoum by intervening to protect civilians.

Othman said carrying out evacuations without the military’s approval could be dangerous and lead to restricted access for relief organizations.

Last year, the army admitted to attacking a humanitarian convoy belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was on its way to rescue about 100 people from the active conflict zone in Khartoum, according to the Sudan Tribune newspaper.

The attack led to the death of two aid workers and the injury of seven people.

In East Nile, the Rapid Support Forces arrested several ERR volunteers for no apparent reason, Atef said.

He speculated that some RSF fighters were looking to collect a quick ransom and intimidate the RSF.

“These are just civilians helping their communities. “There is no reason for them to be in danger,” Atef told Al Jazeera.

“The opposite should happen. They should be given access, money and permits (to do their work).”