Clashes and air strikes were reported in Karthoum just minutes after a one-week ceasefire was due to come into effect.The UN had called on military factions to honour the seven-day truce in order to enable humanitarian aid efforts reach civilians.
Several witnesses reported combat in north Khartoum and air strikes in the east of the capital shortly after 21:45pm (19:45 GMT) Monday night when the truce was due to take effect. Gunfire and explosions had rocked the city throughout the day.
"Fighter jets are bombing our neighbourhood," Khartoum resident Mahmoud Salah el-Din told French news agency AFP in the hours before the truce was to take effect.
Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council wrote on Twitter that "beyond official announcements, Sudan is still pounded and bombarded, with millions of civilian lives at risk."
Media please note: Beyond official announcements, #Sudan is still pounded & bombarded, with millions of civilian lives at risk. We've had over a month of broken promises & empty words while humanitarian colleagues were killed together with children & others & hospitals destroyed https://t.co/e3ss9fP2yB
— Karl Schembri / ابو سلمان (@Karl_Schembri) May 22, 2023
The United States and Saudi Arabia brokered the deal. They said this one would be different because it was "signed by the parties" and would be supported by a "ceasefire monitoring mechanism".
According to the seven-page agreement released by the United States, warring sides were to use the two days before it took effect on Monday night to "inform their respective forces" about it and "instruct them to comply".
'Ethnicisation of the conflict'
The UN held a special Security Council (SC) meeting on Sudan in New York on Monday.
Volker Perthes, the UN's envoy to Sudan, told the SC on Monday evening that fighting and troop movements had continued as the meeting took place.
He told the United Nations Security Council that "the growing ethnicisation of the conflict risks to expand and prolong [the conflict] with implications for the region."
This, as the UN also reported hundreds of civilians killed in the West Darfur capital El Geneina, in Kordofan, and in other parts of the country, and as refugees fled in Egypt, Chad and even South Sudan.
Perthes added: "We've had over a month of broken promises and empty words while humanitarian colleagues were killed, together with children and others and hospitals destroyed."
At the SC, Sudan's representative, loyal to Burhan, blamed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the violations.
Since 15 April, fighting between the regular army (led by Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan) and the paramilitary RSF commanded by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo), has left about 1,000 people dead and forced more than a million to flee their homes.
