Smoke Fills Khartoum Sky on Sixth Day of Sudan Conflict
A cloud of dark smoke was seen billowing above the Sudanese capital of Khartoum as fighting between the country’s military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continued for a sixth day on Thursday, April 20.
On Thursday, Al Jazeera reported renewed clashes between the Sudanese army and the RSF in the vicinity of the presidential palace and at the headquarters of the army’s General Command in the center of the capital city.
A 24-hour ceasefire was broken within hours of it being reached on Wednesday, with both the RSF and Sudan’s military blaming each other.
In a phone interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, General Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the RSF, said his forces were present at Khartoum airport, and that his group was calling for a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire, but “the army doesn’t want that.”
In a separate interview, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, army chief, told Al-Jazeera that the country’s military bases and airports are all under the control of the armed forces, with little presence of the RSF in Khartoum, and ruled out any negotiations with the rival armed group.
This footage was posted to Twitter by Malikarjun Malegar, an Indian national in Sudan. He told Storyful he believed the smoke was rising from the Khartoum airport. Storyful has not independently verified this claim; however, other news footage shows a location in that area of the city.
The Embassy of India in Khartoum urged its nationals not to venture out and ration their supplies as “the situation may continue for a few more days.”
According to the World Health Organization, 330 people have been killed and 3,200 injured since the fighting began. Credit: Malikarjun Malegar via Storyful
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