Sudan’s streets deserted as foreigners flee, lab seizure causes biohazard risk

Khartoum, April 25 (Reuters) – Fighting in Sudan eased on Tuesday as more foreigners and locals fled the capital Khartoum. There, a United Nations agency created what it described as a “high risk of biological hazards” by seizing laboratories.

The World Health Organization said one of the warring parties had taken control of the country’s health facilities, which store measles and cholera agents for vaccination, and forced out the technicians.

It gave few details and did not reveal whether the military or the militia’s Rapid Support Force (RSF) had occupied the lab.

The exodus of embassy and aid personnel from Africa’s third-largest country puts remaining civilians at greater risk if alternatives to hostilities are not found before the three-day ceasefire ends on Thursday. It raises concerns that

Yasir Alman, a leading figure in the civil political coalition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), urged humanitarian groups and the international community to help restore water and electricity and send generators to hospitals. urged.

“The streets are littered with corpses and there are sick people without medicine, water or electricity. People should be allowed to bury their dead during the ceasefire,” he said.

A Khartoum resident, who declined to be identified by name, said he feared the reduction in international observers would mean the fighting forces would show less respect for civilians.

The UN Humanitarian Office said it had scaled back operations because of the fighting. The UN refugee agency predicts that hundreds of thousands may flee to neighboring countries.

Tens of thousands of people have already fled to neighboring Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan despite the precarious situation since the civil war erupted on April 15.

As civilians left Khartoum by car and bus, the streets of one of Africa’s largest metropolitan areas were all but devoid of normal day-to-day life, with those living in the city huddled in their homes.

RSF fighters were seen in many parts of the city, and troops were deployed in other areas.

hundreds of dead

Fighting turned residential areas into battlefields. Airstrikes and artillery shells killed at least 459 people, injured more than 4,000, destroyed hospitals, and restricted food rations. In this country, his third of the population of 46 million is already dependent on aid.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday that in countries bordering the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Sahel regions, violence “could unleash devastating conflagrations, engulfing entire regions and beyond”. rice field.

After several attacks on diplomats, including the killing of an Egyptian military attaché who was shot on his way to work, foreign countries airlifted embassy staff. Some countries even pluck civilians.

The UK has initiated a mass evacuation of its citizens in military aircraft from an airfield north of Khartoum. France and Germany each evacuated her more than 500 people of various nationalities and said French special forces were hit by gunfire during the operation.

Many Sudanese families used the lull as an opportunity to find transportation to take them to safety.

Khartoum resident Intisar Mohammed El Hadj said he hid under his bed to avoid the blast before his family fled to Egypt.

Another resident reported that the bus fare to Egypt has increased sixfold to $340.

Absence of laboratory technicians

WHO’s Nima Saeed Abid, speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan, said gunmen had forced a technician out of the National Institute of Public Health.

“This is the main concern: we don’t have access for lab technicians to go into the lab and safely house the available biological materials and substances,” he said.

The RSF has accused the military of attacking military positions at the presidential palace in Khartoum, in violation of a 72-hour ceasefire agreement agreed on Monday.

Reuters witnesses heard sporadic gunshots Tuesday morning in the city of Omdurman, which borders the capital. Explosions were also reported in Bari across the Nile.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the RSF attacked the diplomat for the killing of the Egyptian attaché.

The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) said the United States and Saudi Arabia had brokered a ceasefire. Several previous truces soon fell apart.

Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan in London and Kiyoshi Takenaka, Kantaro Komiya, Nobuhiro Kubo, Mariko Katsumura and Elaine Lies in Tokyo and Emma Farge in Bern; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

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