Several dead in the capital of Sudan due to the army's aerial bombardments against the paramilitaries | International

The armed conflict between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR) has claimed at least 35 lives this weekend in the Khartoum metropolitan area, after an exchange of attacks between both factions. Almost all of the deceased are civilians and among them there are at least two children, as reported by the emergency committees of the two places attacked.

Far from appeasing, in this African country the daily bombings and episodes of violence are intensifying in recent weeks and its inhabitants are on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe, according to the world's main aid agencies. This weekend's victims add to the at least 5,000 registered by the United Nations, including 435 children, since hostilities began on April 15. The conflict has left more than half of Sudan's 48 million people in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Of them, 6.3 million are “one step away from famine,” according to the UN.

The first of this weekend's episodes was an air attack carried out by the Army this Saturday in Al Kalakla al Qubba, a residential area in the southwest of the capital. It left 23 dead, including two children and a woman, according to the emergency committee of Al Kalakla and Khartoum South, an initiative of volunteer health workers that has been organizing aid to civilians in the area since the outbreak of the war. .

The victims were taken to the morgue of one of the last remaining hospitals in the capital. “There are many bodies burned and destroyed by the bombings that have not been transported there,” the committee warned in a statement. Initially, 11 deaths were reported, but the total toll increased as more bodies were found in the rubble.

The first reports on this bombing, including from the media office of the Kalakla al Qubba Resistance Committee - one of the pro-democracy groups that has been organizing humanitarian aid since the outbreak of war - indicate that the target of the attack air was an informal market. It is a place where goods from looting and the black market are traded in the territories controlled by the FAR, and where militiamen usually frequent. This committee has mentioned on its social networks that paramilitaries were among the casualties and that a school also suffered damage, but no further information has been provided in this regard.

The second attack was also carried out this Sunday by the Army in Omdurman, one of the three cities that make up the capital complex of Khartoum, on the banks of the Nile. There, the residents woke up to the sound of another aerial bombardment that was directed to rebel positions, but which has also impacted this residential area, killing 12 civilians and wounding “dozens” of them, some in serious condition, according to the resistance committee of this district. Several witnesses have reported to the AFP agency of “army artillery and rocket fire.”

The international community has accused the paramilitaries and their allied militias of carrying out ethnically motivated murders in the punished region of Darfur, a stronghold of the FAR and the scene of serious massacres for more than two decades. In fact, the International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into alleged war crimes. However, the regular Army has also been accused of committing abuses against the civilian population, such as the aerial bombardment on July 8, which killed two dozen civilians.

The Sudanese Army, commanded by General Abdel Fattá al Burhane, controls the skies and frequently carries out air attacks, such as those this weekend. The FAR, led by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, dominate the streets of the capital, where fighting rages. Those who have decided to stay despite the constant fighting face daily electricity and water cuts, in addition to the risk of being a victim of bombing or crossfire.

However, the majority of the population has left the city. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that the state of Khartoum tops the list of those with the most displaced people: they account for more than 72% of the total, with more than 2.7 million people forced to flee violence. The total number in the country exceeds 3.8 million people and around another million have crossed the borders to other neighboring countries, where reception conditions are also low.

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