In a rare moment of unity Sunday, the United States, Russia and China all called for an end to the violence in Sudan where officials said dozens of people have been killed and hundreds wounded as the military and a powerful paramilitary group battled for control of the chaos-stricken African nation.
As heavy fighting raged into a second day, the Sudan Central Doctors’ Committee said in a tweet that at least 56 civilians had been killed and “the number of injured reached 595, including wounded soldiers, among them dozens of critical cases.”
It added that it believed there were dozens of additional deaths among the Sudanese military and its partner-turned-rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group who began battling for control of the country Saturday.
Volker Perthes, the United Nations Special Representative in Sudan said in a statement that three employees from the World Food Programme, which later suspended operations in the country, were killed in clashes that erupted in Kabkabiya, North Darfur.
“My deepest condolences are with their families,” he said in a statement, adding that he was “extremely appalled” by reports of looting of U.N. and other humanitarian premises in Darfur.
Both the military and the RSF claimed successes in social media posts Sunday but it was unclear which side had gained the upper hand as skirmishes went on in the capital Khartoum as well as other parts of the country.
Their claims came after the Sudanese News Agency posted a statement from the Security Committee of the State of Khartoum on Saturday warning people to “stay in their homes as much as possible.”
“The honorable citizens should stay away from military areas and any places that could be a target for the ongoing operations,” it said.
The clashes capped months of heightened tensions between the two forces that had delayed a deal with political parties to get the country back to its short-lived transition to democracy, which was derailed by a military coup…
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