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EXPLOSIONS and heavy gunfire rattled the Sudanese capital of Khartoum today, in the fifth day of fighting after an internationally brokered truce quickly fell apart.
The failure of the ceasefire suggested the two rival generals, Abdel Fattah Burham, head of the armed forces, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the rebel Rapid Support Forces, fighting for control of the country, were determined to crush each other in a potentially prolonged conflict.
Residents of multiple neighbourhoods in Khartoum said they could see hundreds trying to escape the city on foot or crammed into vehicles.
“Khartoum has become a ghost city,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of medical organisation the Doctors’ Syndicate.
The United Nations health agency estimates at least 300 people have been killed and thousands more injured in the fighting.
A 24-hour ceasefire was to have been in effect from sundown on Tuesday, a pause that it was hoped could be expanded into a longer truce.
But fighting continued through the night with each side blaming the other for the failure.
Fierce clashes between the army and rebels were reported this morning around the military’s headquarters in central Khartoum and the nearby airport, as well as around the state television building across the river in Omdurman.
A high-rise in the city centre was on fire, with burning debris falling from its top floors, according to footage by the Al Arabiya news network.
“The battles intensified in the morning after sporadic gunfire over the night,” said Tahani Abass, a prominent rights advocate who lives close to the military headquarters.
“Bombing and explosions are shaking our houses.”
Armed men were roaming the streets, storming shops and houses. “They take whatever they can, and if you resist, they kill you,” Mahasen Ali, a tea vendor, said.
Meanwhile, 89 students and staffers at Khartoum University, who had been trapped in the engineering department since the start of fighting, were rescued by the military on Tuesday, said Mohammed al-Faki, one of the freed students.
The conflict between the military and the rebels has once again derailed Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after decades of dictatorship and civil war.
A popular uprising four years ago helped depose long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir, but the generals came together to carry out a 2021 coup.
Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses, and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.