Airstrikes pound Sudan as volunteers bury dead

Air raids, artillery fire and explosions rocked Sudan’s capital Saturday, as fighting between warring generals entered its eighth week, and after volunteers had to bury 180 unidentified bodies.

Witnesses told AFP of “bombs falling and civilians being injured” in southern Khartoum, while others in the city’s north reported “artillery fire”, days after a US- and Saudi-brokered ceasefire collapsed.

Warplanes of the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan targeted positions of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who responded with anti-aircraft fire, residents reported.

Since the fighting between Sudan’s warring generals erupted on April 15, volunteers have buried 102 unidentified bodies in the capital’s Al-Shegilab cemetery and 78 more in cemeteries in Darfur, a Sudanese Red Crescent statement said.

Both Gen Burhan and his deputyturned-rival Daglo have pledged repeatedly to protect civilians and secure humanitarian corridors.

But civilians reported escalated fighting after the army quit ceasefire talks on Wednesday, including one army bombardment that a committee of human rights lawyers said killed 18 civilians in a Khartoum market.

Both sides have accused the other of violating the ceasefire, as well as attacking civilians and infrastructure.

Washington slapped sanctions on the warring parties on Thursday, holding both responsible for provoking “appalling” bloodshed.

In negotiations in Saudi Arabia last month, both parties had agreed to “enable responsible humanitarian actors, such as the Sudanese Red Crescent and/or the International Committee of the Red Cross to collect, register and bury the deceased”.

But volunteers have found it difficult to move through the streets to retrieve the dead “due to security constraints”, the Red Crescent said.

Aid corridors that had been promised truce never materialised, and relief agencies say they have managed to deliver only a fraction of needs.