According to Sudan’s Doctors Syndicate, clashes between armed combatants in a city in Sudan’s restive Darfur region last month killed at least 100 people. Hospitals were closed in the Darfur city of Genena, and an accurate count of the wounded remained difficult, according to a statement posted late Sunday on the doctors’ union’s official Facebook page. The battle in Genena, which erupted just days after Sudan’s two opposing generals took up arms against each other in Khartoum, raises the prospect of the conflict spreading to other parts of the East African country. The death toll from the syndicate comes as talks between the warring sides continue in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
According to a statement made by the Saudi foreign ministry on Monday, negotiations between representatives from the country’s military on one side and the formidable paramilitary, the Rapid Support Forces, on the other, are anticipated to last a few more days. The negotiations, which are centred on establishing humanitarian corridors for aid and civilians, are part of a larger diplomatic strategy offered by Saudi Arabia and the United States to end the conflict. The doctors’ organisation did not name the two parties involved in the confrontations in Genena, a city of around 500,000 people near the Chadian border that has been a flashpoint from the beginning of the violence. On Friday, the governor of West Darfur, which includes Genena, accused the RSF of destroying government offices, torching more than ten shelters for displaced families, and looting homes and stores.
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