Sudan

Port Sudan, Sudan — Explosions were heard near the army-controlled Sudanese capital Khartoum on Friday, witnesses told News, a day after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said they had accepted a US-backed humanitarian truce proposal to stop vicious attacks. two and a half year civil war.

Following RSF recommendations capture of El-Fasherthe army’s last major stronghold in Western Darfur, less than two weeks ago, the paramilitaries appear to be shifting their focus eastward, towards Khartoum and the oil-rich region of Kordofan.

Khartoum has seen relative calm since the regular army regained control this year, but the RSF, at war with the army since April 2023, has continued its attacks in several regions, targeting both military and civilian sites.

A resident of Omdurman, part of the Khartoum metropolitan area, told News, on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, that they were awakened “around 2 a.m. (7 p.m. Thursday Eastern Time) by the sound of… explosions near the Wadi Sayidna military base.”

Another resident said they “heard a drone flying overhead around 4 a.m. before an explosion occurred near” a power plant, causing a blackout in the area.

In army-held Atbara, about 300 kilometers north of Khartoum, a resident said several drones “appeared over the city shortly after 3 a.m.” on Friday.

“The anti-aircraft defenses shot them down, but I saw fires and heard sounds of explosions in the east of the city,” said the resident, also on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Another Atbara resident told News: “I saw 10 drones over the city and the anti-aircraft defenses were shooting them down one by one, but at the same time I saw fires in the east of the city.”

There were no immediate reports of casualties and neither the army nor the RSF immediately commented on the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Sudan Doctors Union said the RSF bombed a hospital in the besieged town of Dilling in South Kordofan on Thursday morning, causing several injuries, some of them critical.

The bombing “destroyed the hospital’s radiology and medical imaging department,” crippling one of the region’s vital health facilities, the union said.

Dilling has been under siege by RSF since June 2023.

Sudan’s devastating civil war has intensified this year, most notably as the RSF first imposed a month-long blockade of El-Fasher while shelling the city’s trapped inhabitants and then pushed to take control of the city late last month.

Multiple reports from external monitoring groups suggest large scale atrocities in El-Fasher since the FAR took the city. The entire war has been marked by accusations of serious human rights violations and war crimes, with the Biden administration indicting the RSF just before President Trump took office. to commit genocide.

The United States has been working with international partners (and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in particular, which together with Washington have become known as the Quad) to negotiate an end to the war.

On Thursday, a US State Department spokesperson in Washington told reporters that the Trump administration was engaging directly with the RSF and the Sudanese military, calling on both sides to “move forward in response to the US-led effort to conclude a humanitarian truce, given the immediate urgency to reduce violence and end the suffering of the Sudanese people.”

The US official spoke after RSF announced that it had accepted a humanitarian truce proposal put forward by the Quad, “in response to the aspirations and interests of the Sudanese people.”

Neither the Quad nations nor the two warring factions in Sudan have confirmed details of the truce proposal, and the military-aligned government in Khartoum had no immediate comment on the RSF announcement.