Conflict-torn After an airstrike on a residential neighborhood on Sunday left almost two dozen civilians dead, the United Nations warned that Sudan was on the verge of a “full-scale civil war” that may destabilize the entire region.
In the neighborhood of Dar al-Salam, which is Arabic for “House of Peace,” Khartoum’s sister city Omdurman was struck, according to the Ministry of Health, leaving “22 dead and a large number of wounded among the civilians.”
The air strike is the most recent event to spark outrage after nearly three months of conflict between Sudan’s warring generals.
There have been about 3,000 fatalities in the fighting, a surge of sexual assaults have been claimed by survivors, and witnesses have described racially motivated killings. Widespread theft has taken place, and the UN has warned that there may have been crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.
Several ladies were among the dead that appeared to be motionless following the attack in a video that the health ministry uploaded on Facebook. The narrator claims that locals “counted 22 dead”.
According to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group battling the regular army, 31 people were killed in the strike.
Paramilitaries have built bases in residential areas since the war started, and they have been charged with ejecting residents from their houses.
According to his deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the air strike in Omdurman on Sunday, which “reportedly killed at least 22 people” and injured numerous others.
Guterres “remains deeply concerned that the ongoing war between the armed forces has pushed Sudan to the brink of a full-scale civil war, potentially destabilising the entire region”, Haq said.
He added: “There is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing.”
According to the International Organization for Migration, about 700,000 individuals have fled to neighboring countries as a result of the conflict in Sudan, which has dislocated nearly three million people.
The RSF and its allies have been held responsible for the majority of the numerous violations, according to the United States, Norway, and Britain, although the UN and African blocs have warned of a “ethnic dimension” to the fighting in Darfur’s western region.
Haq voiced his support for the IGAD and AU’s efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan.
The heads of the IGAD nations managing the Sudan issue, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan, will meet in Addis Abeba on Monday.
Both RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo and Sudan’s army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan have been invited, but neither has indicated that they will go.
Throughout the war, numerous ceasefires have been declared and disregarded.
