KHARTOUM: Air strikes and artillery rocked Khartoum on Saturday as Sudan entered a third week of fighting. It is going on between rival military forces despite a ceasefire. It caused more civilians to flee and warnings of wider instability if the war continues.
By Saturday evening, heavy clashes were heard near downtown Khartoum, near the army headquarters and presidential palace.
A US-government convoy evacuated US citizens, local staff, and others from Port Sudan on Saturday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Miller said the US will help evacuees reach Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He did not say how many Americans remained in the country.
A UN envoy said the warring sides were now more open to negotiations, but no date had been set.
Since April 15, a long-simmering power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed hundreds and wounded thousands.
The fighting has pushed Sudan towards civil war, derailing an internationally-backed transition to democracy and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee to neighbouring countries.
“I’m afraid that one day I’m asleep and I wake up to a bomb falling on my house,” Khalid told Reuters from Khartoum, where he has stayed because his elderly grandmother and ill sister would suffer on the long, expensive trip out.
That’s my biggest worry. That’s it. So I can’t sleep.”
Despite US-mediated ceasefires, the sides have fought. Sunday’s midnight truce ends.
