Sudan military offensive sparks new fighting in Khartoum as cholera outbreak worsens

CAIRO (AP) — New fighting rocked Sudan’s capital on Thursday with airstrikes and drone attacks in and around Khartoum amid a worsening cholera outbreak, officials said.

Sudan’s military launched an operation in the early hours of Thursday aimed at taking control of areas in the capital that had been in the hands of its enemy, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Sudanese media reported increased military movements and airstrikes in the districts of Khartoum and Omdurman, the heaviest in the capital area in months.

Mohamed Ibrahim, the health ministry’s spokesperson in Khartoum, said in a statement that four civilians were killed and 14 others wounded in the latest fighting in the Karrari district of Omdurman, a city next to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

A military spokesman confirmed the operation was underway, but declined to comment further. A military spokesman confirmed the operation was underway, but declined to comment further. The head of Sudan’s military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York, saying that “we’ve done everything we could to put an end to this war and to steer our country from the destruction being waged” by the militia.

He maintained that position when he spoke to reporters at the Sudanese Mission to the United Nations on Thursday evening.

“The operation going on in Khartoum is meant to preserve the integrity of our country, the safety of our people and our armed forces,” he said.

“The military solution is the last one,” Burhan continued. “We crave a peaceful solution that spares out people more suffering, more hunger, more displacement.”

Burhan, who led a military takeover of Sudan in 2021, is a close ally of neighboring Egypt and its president, former army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

His country plunged into chaos in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo broke out into street battles in Khartoum. Fighting has spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas and the western Darfur region.

At a General Assembly whose doomsday feeling was fueled by three major wars along with inaction on global warming, the fighting and humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan took third place after the killing in the Middle East and Ukraine. The lack of focus on Sudan was bemoaned by many.

The “brutal power struggle” between Sudan’s warring generals has “unleashed horrific violence,” including widespread rape, and a “humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding as famine spreads,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told the annual high-level gathering of the 193 member nations on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations met without measurable results Wednesday to urge Sudan’s warring parties in Sudan to hold breaks in the fighting and allow aid to reach civilians.

“More than 25 million Sudanese face acute hunger,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement Wednesday. “Some 11 million have fled their homes in what has become the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet … We must compel the warring parties to accept humanitarian pauses.”

Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday that at least 78 civilians were killed because of artillery shelling and airstrikes since the beginning of September in the Khartoum area.

“Our immediate concern is for the welfare of civilians, and the likelihood of further displacement and damage to civilian infrastructure,” he said.

For months, some of the worst fighting has been in the city of El Fasher, the capital of the North Darfur state. RSF forces have laid siege to the city since May. On Thursday, U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said that artillery shelling on a market there had killed at least 20 civilians on Sep. 20 and 21.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Sudan’s cholera outbreak jumped by nearly 100 or nearly 20% in only two days, Sudan’s health ministry said Wednesday, in a worrying sign that the disease is spreading more rapidly. A total of 473 people have died from cholera since the country’s rainy season began two months ago, health officials said.

Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health in a Wednesday update reported on Facebook 14,944 cholera cases across 10 states, with 386 new cases. It said that six people died on Tuesday alone in six states.

The majority of cases were reported in Kassala, where UNICEF is collaborating with the ministry and the World Health Organization to carry out a second round of the oral cholera vaccination campaign that kicked off last week.

UNICEF delivered 404,000 doses of the vaccine to Sudan on Sep. 9. More vaccination campaigns are expected to be rolled out in other affected states.

Cholera was officially declared an outbreak on August 12 by the health ministry after a new wave of cases was reported starting July 22. The disease is spreading in areas devastated by recent heavy rainfalls and floods, especially in eastern Sudan which sheltered millions of people displaced by the conflict between the Sudanese military and the RSF.

Cholera is a highly contagious disease that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and could be fatal if not immediately treated, according to WHO. It’s transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.

UNICEF said in a statement last week that an estimated 3.4 million children under the age of 5 are at high risk of epidemic diseases.

The war in Sudan created environments prone to disease outbreaks, impacting millions of people already experiencing food insecurity and displacement. The country plunged into war in April 2023 after tensions increased between the military and the RSF.

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Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report from New York and Jamey Keaten contributed from Geneva.