Gunfire heard in Khartoum despite start of US-brokered Sudan ceasefire

More evacuees landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday night, hours before a 72-hour halt to fighting began

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Evacuation efforts have intensified in Sudan after a US and Saudi-brokered 72-hour ceasefire came into effect at midnight on Monday.

Local media reported a “cautious calm” in parts of Khartoum — but many residents in the city said they woke up to shelling on the first day of the three-day truce.

“Waking up to heavy gunfire, despite the announced US-sponsored ceasefire,” Hamid Khalafallah wrote on Twitter.

“Literally under shots and heavy artillery from morning in Kafouri, no ceasefire has been honoured ever since this war started,” Zeinab Mubarak said.

Reports of sporadic gunfire continued into Tuesday afternoon.

Videos posted on social media appeared to show civilians walking down a street in Khartoum North, where almost every building was destroyed and smoke rose from the ruins.

Some witnesses said warplanes were flying overhead.

More than 420 people have been killed since fighting broke out between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group and Sudan's army 10 days ago.

Egypt said a member of its diplomatic mission, Mohammad Al Gharawi, was killed on his way to the embassy in Khartoum.

Three previous ceasefires have failed, so the outlook is uncertain, but some local groups assisting in evacuations are reporting that humanitarian corridors have been created.

The Refugees in Egypt platform, helping people leave Sudan into Egypt, said the corridors are also helping the wounded get the medical help they need.

Meanwhile, fears are mounting that civilians will be in even bigger danger when foreigners leave the country.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned about the consequences of Sudan's conflict extending beyond its borders, adding that the violence “could engulf the whole region and beyond”.

A UN convoy made the 850km journey from Khartoum, where clashes are most intense, to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast — one of several destinations for people trying to escape the violence.

“Thirty-five hours in a not so comfortable convoy is certainly better than three hours of bombing and sitting under the shells,” UN head of mission to Sudan Volker Perthes said on Monday, after arriving in Port Sudan. Using a megaphone to speak to those with him, he assured the Sudanese people that the UN would not leave the country.

Others had a longer journey to make.

Nearly 200 people from 20 countries arrived in Jeddah on Monday night after crossing the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.

“We travelled a long way from Khartoum to Port Sudan. It took us around 10 or 11 hours,” said Lebanese citizen Suhaib Aicha, who has operated a plastics factory in Sudan for more than a decade.

Sudan's doctors' union reported that morgues were full and that “corpses litter the streets”. Unverified videos seen by The National showed dead bodies, purportedly of fighters in uniform, from both sides. They were wrapped in blankets as they lay near what appeared to be pools of blood.

The videos were shot by civilians who had managed to leave their homes briefly to get basic necessities such as food, water and fuel, which are running dangerously short.

One Sudanese-British citizen in the UK told The National that her mother, father and sister, who are Dutch, had made it safely to an evacuation point for Dutch citizens.

“I feel so helpless,” she said, adding that her sister-in-law remained trapped in Khartoum with very little to eat.

Saudi Arabia was among the first countries to evacuate civilians from Sudan on Saturday, with 150 people landing in Jeddah.

On Monday, a C-130 Hercules military plane flew more people, including children and a nun, to Jeddah's King Abdullah Air base.

So far, 356 people have been taken from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, state news outlet SPA reported.

Saudi Arabia has been calling for calm since the fighting broke out on April 15 between the RSF's Gen Mohamed Dagalo and his former boss, Sudanese army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

— With reporting from news agencies