The head of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has demanded that his foes in the army general staff step down to allow more than three months of fighting to end.
In a five-minute video believed to be his first since the fighting erupted on April 15, General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo told regular army troops on Friday that peace could be restored “within 72 hours” if they handed over their commander General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and his top aides.
Filmed wearing military fatigues and surrounded by jubilant RSF fighters, Daglo insisted that he wanted a return to peace.
But there was no let-up in the fighting, with residents reporting fresh air strikes and rocket fire on densely populated residential areas of the capital Khartoum.
Witnesses also told AFP news agency that explosions were heard inside the Yarmouk weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex.
Nationwide, the fighting has killed at least 3,900 people and driven more than 3.5 million from their homes.
A Reuters tally of death figures recorded by local activists and volunteer groups, however, indicates that the civilian death toll for the wider capital of Khartoum, for example, maybe more than double the official count, underscoring the devastating impact of the more than 100-day long war on the Sudanese people.
A health ministry report circulated to aid agencies and seen by Reuters put the death toll in Khartoum State at 234 people as of July 5.
The report specifies that the data is collected only from civilian hospitals.
But across Khartoum State, which includes the capital and its sister cities Omdurman and Bahri, activist and volunteer groups have recorded at least 580 civilian deaths through July 26 as a result of air strikes, artillery and gunfire.
The disparity in the figures for Khartoum State suggests that the official nationwide death toll, which the health ministry puts at 1,136 people as of July 5, may also be an undercount.
An official in Sudan’s health ministry told Reuters the official figure was “the tip of the iceberg.” That’s because many civilians have died in their neighbourhoods or at home – not in hospital – so their deaths wouldn’t have been recorded, he said.
Meanwhile, in Sudan’s Darfur region, the militias are accused of carrying out executions, rapes and burning of homes in rampages targeting civilians trying to escape to neighbouring Chad, where at least 260,000 Sudanese have fled.
Source: TRTworld.com