Clashes reported in Sudan's capital on 2nd day of truce

KHARTOUM — Clashes between rival military factions could be heard overnight in parts of Sudan's capital, residents said on Wednesday, the second full day of a weeklong cease-fire designed to allow for the delivery of aid and lay the ground for a more lasting truce.

The truce was agreed at talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday after five weeks of fierce battles between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the capital Khartoum and several other areas. It is being tracked by Saudi Arabia and the United States and is meant to allow for the delivery of humanitarian relief.

Residents of Omdurman, one of the three cities around the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers that make up Sudan's greater capital, said there had been exchanges of fire late on Tuesday in several areas.

"We heard the sound of heavy clashes yesterday night in north Omdurman but the situation is better after the truce," Hassan Awad, a 48-year-old university professor, told Reuters. "Every day we have hope in the possibility that the nightmare of the war ends."

The cease-fire brought a relative lull in fighting in Khartoum earlier on Tuesday, though there has so far been little sign of a rapid scale-up in humanitarian relief, with aid workers saying that many of the supplies and staff arriving at Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast have been awaiting security permits and guarantees.

Sudan was facing severe humanitarian pressures even before the conflict broke out on April 15, forcing more than 1.1 million people to flee their homes and threatening to destabilize the region.

Agencies via Xinhua