More than four million people have been driven out of their homes since conflict between the Sudanese army and rival paramilitary forces broke out in April, over 884,000 of whom have left the country, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency said; Sudan’s government said in June that more than three thousand people have been killed in the conflict, but activists and doctors say the real toll is likely far higher (AP)
Residents Ordered to Evacuate Area Near Capital Amid Shelling
Heavy artillery fire reportedly struck areas around Khartoum, including residential buildings, as the army continued to try to cut off RSF supply routes; conservative estimates now put the death toll in Sudan at 3,900 (AFP)
Amnesty International Flags Alleged War Crimes in Ongoing Sudan Battle
Mass civilian casualties are occurring during the war in Sudan, human rights group Amnesty International said in a new report; both the Sudanese military and their paramilitary opponents have shown “utter disregard for the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” and committed sexual violence against women and girls, the report said (Amnesty International)
Meanwhile, the UN warned of a worsening food crisis as Sudan’s economy collapses; around 20 million people, more than 40 percent of the population, face acute food insecurity (France 24;UN)
UN: Sudan Conflict Displaces Nearly Four Million People
The UN International Organization for Migration estimates 926,000 people have sought refuge abroad while 3.02 million are internally displaced (UN)
Sudanese Authorities Seek to Re-Arrest Former Top Officials
Shortly after fighting broke out in Sudan, several members of former President Omar al-Bashir’s government broke out of jail; now, opponents fear they will try to regain power (Reuters)
Sudan’s RSF Fighters Evict Khartoum Residents
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly evicted hundreds of people living near a new military zone established in the southern part of the capital, while civilian neighborhoods in Darfur faced bombings (AFP)
Sudan’s Army Says Negotiations Conditional on RSF Withdrawal from Khartoum
The warring parties have so far dithered on a return to peace talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and violence has escalated in Khartoum as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) refuses to give up its advantage on the ground there (Sudan Tribune)
RSF Leader Calls for Replacement of Sudan’s Army Leadership
In his first public appearance in over two months, following reports that he had suffered serious injuries, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Hemeti appeared in a video and said the conflict would end swiftly through negotiations if the military replaced its “aggressive leadership” (Middle East Eye;Reuters)
Meanwhile, independent reports suggest the civilian death toll in Khartoum is double the official figure of 234 people (Reuters)
Ten Thousand Reportedly Killed in West Darfur, Sudan
Tribal leaders claimed 80 percent of the population of El Geneina, West Darfur’s capital, have fled after 16,000 people attacked and looted the city; the UN says 300,000 have crossed the border to Sudan, and more than 2.6 million Sudanese are internally displaced (CNN)
At peace talks on Darfur in Togo, a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) envoy said it was “time for peace,” but rights groups say RSF and Arab militias have attacked and burned down non-Arab majority towns in Darfur (AFP)
Sudanese General Rejects Regional Peacekeeping Force
A Sudanese army general criticized a Kenya-led East African regional proposal to send peacekeepers to help end the war in Sudan, saying “not one of [the Kenyan troops] would make it back;” the army has accused Kenya of being biased toward the Rapid Support Forces, their rival paramilitary group (Reuters)
Sudan Enters One-Hundredth Day of Fighting
Fighting continues to spread west and south from the capital as regional mediation efforts have failed to gain traction in a conflict that has already forced more than three million people to flee their homes (Reuters)
Sudanese Civilians Killed in Darfur Fighting
Rocket fire in the South Darfur city of Nyala reportedly killed sixteen civilians; reports have also emerged of snipers targeting civilians (Al Jazeera)
Medics Beaten and Whipped in Sudan’s Capital
Doctors Without Borders, which supports the two remaining hospitals operating in southern Khartoum, said the repeated targeting of medical staff threatens its ability to continue providing aid (BBC)
Sudan Fighting Intensifies After Warring Generals Release Messages
After the rivals released rare video and audio recordings earlier in the week, they traded air strikes in the cities of Khartoum and El-Obeid, reportedly hitting residential areas and killing civilians (Africa News)
New satellite data indicates just how widely fighting has spread in Sudan (Economist)
Rebel Group Resumes Attacks in Southern Sudan
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N), a rebel group formed by members of the former South Sudan Liberation Movement who remained in Sudan, has launched attacks in South Kordofan over the past month, breaking a cease-fire and reversing progress made during a years-long peace process (Sudan Tribune)
South Sudan’s government has condemned the attacks north of its border, fearing it could lead to further destabilization (Sudan Tribune)
UN: Sudan Conflict Displaced Nearly 200,000 in Last Week Alone
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2.6 million people have been internally displaced and 730,000 have fled Sudan since the start of violence on April 15 (UN)
Fighting and looting in the South Darfur town of Kas, captured by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) yesterday, have displaced nearly five thousand households (Reuters)
Sudan’s Conflict Risks Spillover Into Sahel
Chadian soldiers have taken up posts in border towns along the Sudanese border to prevent violence from spreading over the border, which would pose the threat of a belt of instability stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea (FT)
An estimated 180,000 people have already fled Sudan to eastern Chad since the fighting began (ReliefWeb)
Sudanese Army Returns to Jeddah for Peace Talks
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) did not immediately comment on whether it would also return to participate in U.S.- and Saudi-led peace talks (Al Jazeera)
Meanwhile, an RSF drone struck a hospital in Omdurman, killing four people (Reuters)
Egypt Announces Sudan Peace Initiative After Regional Summit
Seven of Sudan’s neighbors and both of Sudan’s warring factions backed the initiative, which proposes a ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and inclusive dialogue as a path to peace in Sudan, though a similar proposal failed in May (AP)
Meanwhile, strikes by the Sudanese army killed at least thirty people in an Omdurman market (Guardian)
Separately, the International Criminal Court announced it is investigating alleged war crimes in Darfur (AP)
Egypt Hosts Meeting Aimed at Mediating Sudan’s War
Leaders from countries neighboring Sudan are meeting in Cairo today as the war in Sudan nears the three-month mark; Egypt hopes to succeed where others have failed by capitalizing on its ties to the Sudanese military to broker a three-month cease-fire (Reuters)
Meanwhile, a report this week found that continued conflict in Sudan over the next two to five months could exacerbate food insecurity, afflicting more than nineteen million people (ReliefWeb)
Number of Displaced Persons by Sudan War Surpasses Three Million
More than three million people have now been displaced by the conflict in Sudan, the International Organization for Migration said, with more than 2.4 million internally displaced and over 730,000 having crossed into neighboring countries (Reuters)
Heavy Fighting in Sudan Over Supply Lines
The paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces has extended its hold on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, while some of the fiercest fighting with Sudan’s army has moved to Omdurman, a city across the Nile River in an attempt to gain control of supply routes (NYT)
Meanwhile, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sent a representative to regional peace talks in Ethiopia, but the Sudanese government did not participate (France 24)
The Sudanese army has also rejected the deployment of a regional peacekeeping force (Reuters)
East African Bloc Mulls Troop Deployment to Sudan
During a meeting in Addis Ababa, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a group of eight regional states, considered sending troops to protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access (Reuters)
Ethiopia Hosts Forum on Resolving Sudan Conflict
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee is attending the meetings to discuss pathways to peace with African leaders and Sudanese civilians; competing efforts to launch negotiations have so far failed to gain buy-in from the warring parties (Reuters)
Egypt also announced it will hold a summit later this week (Reuters)
Meanwhile, the UN warned that Sudan is on “the brink of a full-scale civil war,” risking regional destabilization, as civilian casualties mount and more people are displaced (CNN)
Sudanese Army Airstrike Kills At Least Twenty-Two in Omdurman
The strike was one of the deadliest of the war thus far, as the army continues artillery and air attacks around the capital to try to drive out the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls much of Khartoum and the neighboring cities of Bahri and Omdurman; the RSF contends that thirty-one were killed by the strike (BBC)