Fighting raged in Omdurman, a city across the Nile from Khartoum, residents said, despite a hoped-for cease-fire to coincide with the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
“We did not see such a truce,” Amin al-Tayed said from his home near state TV headquarters in Omdurman, adding that heavy gunfire and thundering explosions rocked the city.
Over 420 people, including 264 civilians, have been killed and over 3,700 wounded in the fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
The RSF said the armed forces unleashed airstrikes on the upscale neighborhood of Kafouri, north of Khartoum. There was no immediate army comment.
The ongoing violence has paralyzed the main international airport, destroying civilian planes and damaging at least one runway, and thick, black smoke rose above it. Other airports also have been knocked out of operation.
European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted he had spoken with the rival commanders, urging an immediate cease-fire to protect civilians and ensure the safe evacuation of EU citizens.
In other fighting, a senior military official said army and police repelled an RSF attack on Kober Prison in Khartoum where Sudan’s longtime ruler, Omar al-Bashir, and former officials in his movement have been held since his ouster in 2019. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said a number of prisoners fled but al-Bashir and other high-profile inmates were in a “highly secure” area, and “a few prisoners” were killed or wounded.
The RSF claimed later that the military removed al-Bashir and other prisoners from the facility, although the statement could not be independently confirmed.
The Arqin border crossing with Egypt was crowded with about 30 passenger buses holding at least 55 people each, said Suliman al-Kouni, an Egyptian dental student who fled northward from Khartoum with dozens of other Egyptian students.
“We traveled 15 hours on land at our own risk,” al-Kouni told The Associated Press by phone. “But many of our friends are still trapped in Sudan.”
Sudan experienced a “near-total collapse” of internet and phone connections nationwide Sunday, according to the monitoring service NetBlocks.
“It’s possible that infrastructure has been damaged or sabotaged,” said Netblocks director Alp Toker. “This will have a major effect on residents’ ability to stay safe and will impact the evacuation programs that are ongoing.”
After a week of bloody battles that hindered rescues, U.S. special forces swiftly evacuated 70 U.S. Embassy staffers from Khartoum to Ethiopia early Sunday. Although American officials said it was too dangerous for a government-coordinated evacuation of private citizens, other countries scrambled to remove citizens and diplomats.
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted that U.K. armed forces evacuated British diplomatic staff and their families “amid a significant escalation in violence and threats.” Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said over 1,200 military personnel were involved.
France, Greece, Jordan and other nations also organized flights. The Netherlands sent two Hercules C-130 planes and an Airbus A330 to Jordan for 152 Dutch citizens who made their way out of Sudan, but “not without risks,” said Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren. Italy, seeking to extract 140 of its nationals, sent military jets to Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden, said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
Overland travel through contested areas has proven dangerous. Khartoum is about 840 kilometers (520 miles) from Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
On Saturday, Saudi Arabia said it evacuated 157 people, including 91 Saudi nationals and citizens of other countries. Saudi state TV showed a large convoy of cars and buses traveling from Khartoum to Port Sudan, where a navy ship took them to the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The power struggle between the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has dealt a harsh blow to Sudan’s hopes for a democratic transition. The rival generals came to power after a pro-democracy uprising led to the ouster of the former strongman, al-Bashir. In 2021, the generals joined forces to seize power in a coup.
The current violence came after Burhan and Dagalo fell out over a recent internationally brokered deal with democracy activists that was meant to incorporate the RSF into the military and eventually lead to civilian rule.
Both generals, each craving international legitimacy, have accused the other of obstructing the evacuations. The Sudanese military alleged the RSF opened fire on a French convoy, wounding a French national. The RSF countered it came under attack by warplanes as French citizens and diplomats left the embassy for Omdurman, saying the military’s strikes “endangered the lives of French nationals.”