Sudan’s paramilitary RSF to move Egyptian troops from Merowe airport to Khartoum

KHARTOUM (Agencies): Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces will move Egyptian troops that were in Merowe airport when fighting broke out to Khartoum, according to a statement released by the group on Wednesday.

RSF added that Egyptian troops to be handed over to Cairo “once the situation allows it,” according to the statement cited by Reuters.

Explosions and heavy gunfire rattled the Sudanese capital in a fifth day of fighting Wednesday after an internationally brokered truce quickly fell apart.

The cease-fire failure suggested the two rival generals fighting for control of the country were determined to crush each other in a potentially prolonged conflict.

With no sign of respite, desperate and terrified Sudanese who have been trapped for days in their homes by the violence began to flee, witnesses said.

Residents of multiple neighborhoods of Khartoum told The Associated Press they could see hundreds, including women and children, carrying luggage, some leaving by foot, others crowding into vehicles.

“Khartoum has become a ghost city,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate, who is still in the capital.

The generals’ fight for power has caught millions of Sudanese in the crossfire, as their forces have battled it out since Saturday with heavy machine guns, artillery and airstrikes in residential neighborhoods of Khartoum, its neighboring city Omdurman and other major towns of the country.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past five days, the U.N. health agency said, but the toll is likely higher, since many bodies have been left in the streets, unreachable because of clashes.

A 24-hour cease-fire was to have been in effect from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday. It was the most concrete attempt yet to bring a pause that it was hoped could be expanded into a longer truce.