Sudan’s army and RSF say ceasefire extended but fighting goes on

The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to extend their ceasefire amid ongoing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western Darfur region.

In the final hours of the repeatedly broken three-day truce, due to end at midnight (22:00 GMT) on Thursday, the army said it would extend the ceasefire “for an additional 72 hours” following mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

tended truce, adding that the proposal came from two diplomatic groupings that include the US, Saudi Arabia, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.

On Thursday, warplanes patrolled over the capital’s northern suburbs as fighters on the ground exchanged artillery and heavy machine-gun fire, witnesses told the AFP news agency.

The previous ceasefire has not stopped the fighting but created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate hundreds of their citizens by land and sea.

Together, the army and the RSF toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup but are now locked in a power struggle that has derailed an internationally-backed transition to democracy and is threatening to destabilise a fragile region.

The army claims it controls most of Sudan’s regions and is defeating a large RSF deployment in Khartoum, where some residential areas have turned into war zones.