Getty Images Copyright: Getty Images Image caption: Buildings across Khartoum are pockmarked from more than a week of heavy fighting
There are also reports of gunfire inside Port Sudan prison. An army spokesman told Sky News Arabia that the RSF was responsible for "storming prisons". Source: BBC News Live Reporting.
Saudi Arabia announces first civilian evacuations from Sudan
Boat carrying Saudi citizens and other nationals arrives in Jeddah
PHOTO People fill barrels with water in southern Khartoum on April 22, 2023, amid water shortages caused by ongoing battles between the forces of two rival Sudanese generals. Image Credit: AFP
CAIRO: A boat carrying Saudi citizens and other nationals rescued from battle-scarred Sudan arrived Saturday in Jeddah, Saudi state television said, in the first announced evacuation of civilians since fighting there began.
“The first evacuation vessel from Sudan has arrived, carrying 50 (Saudi) citizens and a number of nationals from friendly countries,” the official Al Ekhbariyah television said.
The boat docked at the Red Sea port of Jeddah where four other ships carrying 108 people from 11 different countries was expected to arrive later from Sudan, the broadcaster said.
Al Ekhbariyah carried footage of large vessels arriving in Jeddah’s port. It also released a video showing women and children carrying Saudi flags on board one of the ships.
Saturday’s evacuations mark the first major civilian rescue since violence in Sudan broke out on April 15. […]
Sounds of fighting continued overnight but appeared less intense on Saturday morning than on the previous day, a Reuters journalist in Khartoum said. Live broadcasts by regional news channels showed rising smoke and the thud of blasts.
The army and the paramilitary RSF, which are waging a deadly power struggle across the country, had both issued statements saying they would uphold a three-day ceasefire from Friday for Islam’s Eid Al Fitr holiday. […]
There has been no sign yet that either side can secure a quick victory or is ready to back down and talk.
The army has air power but the RSF is widely embedded in urban areas including around key facilities in central Khartoum.
Burhan and Hemedti had held the top two positions on a ruling council overseeing a political transition after a 2021 coup that was meant to include a move to civilian rule and the RSF’s merger into the army.
In Omdurman, one of Khartoum’s adjoining sister cities, there were fears over the fate of detainees in Al Huda prison, the largest in Sudan.
The army on Friday accused the RSF of raiding the prison, which the paramilitary force denied. Lawyers for a prisoner there said in a statement that an armed group had forcibly evacuated the prison, with the detainees’ whereabouts unknown.
The Sudanese doctors union said early on Saturday that more than two thirds of hospitals in conflict areas were out of service, with 32 forcibly evacuated by soldiers or caught in crossfire.
Some of the remaining hospitals, which lack adequate water, staff and electricity, were only providing first aid. People posted urgent requests on social media for medical assistance, transport to hospital and prescription medication.
Any let-up in fighting on Saturday may accelerate a desperate rush by many Khartoum residents to flee the fighting, after spending days trapped in their homes or local districts under bombardment and with fighters roaming the streets. […]
NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: The following report from AFP says a group of 235 fighters from a faction of a Darfur rebel group that is part of the protest movement were released by Sudan's TMC on 04 July 2019. I wonder whether they were the captives featured in the first of four film clips posted here 25 June: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2019/06/shocking-sudan-film-cruel-tmc-rsf.html.
Sudan talks enter day two with key issue still unresolved
Ruling generals resist demand for civilian-led administration but agree to release detainees
Photo: Members of the Sudanese Military Council and the protest movement the Alliance for Freedom and Change meet at the Corinthia Hotel in the capital Khartoum on July 3, 2019. Picture: AFP/ASHRAF SHAZLY
Khartoum — Talks between Sudan’s ruling generals and protest leaders, held after weeks of standoff following a deadly crackdown on protesters, entered a second day on Thursday [04 July] with the key issue of forming a new governing body still unresolved.
Sudan has been rocked by a political crisis since the army ousted longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April on the back of widespread protests, with the ruling generals resisting demonstrators’ demands to hand power to a civilian administration.
The generals had previously agreed over a broad civilian structure, but talks between the two sides collapsed in May following a disagreement over who should lead an overall new governing body — a civilian or a soldier.
Tensions further surged between the generals and protest leaders after a deadly predawn raid on a longstanding protest camp in Khartoum on June 3 killed dozens of demonstrators and wounded hundreds.
Talks finally resumed on Wednesday after intense mediation by Ethiopian and AU envoys, who have put forward a draft proposal to break the deadlock. The two sides were due to meet again on Thursday evening.
“The discussion will be about who heads the sovereign council,” a prominent protest leader who is part of the talks, Ahmed al-Rabie, told AFP, referring to the governing body.
He said the ruling military council that took power after Bashir’s ouster insists the head of the new governing body be from the army. “We believe that symbolically the head of the state must be a civilian,” Rabie said.
For weeks this issue has rocked Sudan, extending the political crisis triggered since the fall of Bashir.
The joint Ethiopian and AU blueprint calls for a civilian-majority ruling body.
On Wednesday, the first day of the latest round of talks, the two sides did not discuss the crucial issue of the governing body.
“The parties conducted responsible negotiations and agreed on some issues,” AU mediator Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt told reporters overnight after long hours of talks held at a luxury hotel in the capital. “There’s a decision taken to release all political detainees.”
A group of 235 fighters from a faction of a Darfur rebel group that is part of the protest movement were released later on Thursday.
They were freed from Al-Huda prison in Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum across the Nile river, an AFP correspondent reported, adding that many relatives had arrived to receive the fighters.
Protest leaders have exerted pressure on the generals since the June 3 raid on the mass sit-in outside army headquarters. The raid was carried out by men in military fatigues.
The ruling military council insists it did not order the violent dispersal of the sit-in.
At least 136 people have been killed across the country since the raid, including more than 100 on June 3, according to doctors close to the umbrella protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change. The health ministry says 78 people have been killed nationwide over the same period.
On Sunday protest leaders managed to mobilise tens of thousands of supporters in the first mass protest against the generals since the raid.
The mass rally had been seen as a test for the protest leaders’ ability to mobilise crowds after the generals imposed a widespread internet blackout and deployed security forces in the capital’s key squares and districts, and in Omdurman and other towns and villages.
Protest leaders have upped the pressure on the generals by calling for a similar mass protest on July 13, to be followed by a nationwide civil disobedience campaign a day later.
The campaign, if observed, would be the second such agitation since the June 3 raid. The first, held between June 9 and 11, paralysed the country, hitting an already dilapidated economy hard.
