Fighting spread to a Sudanese city crucial to international aid efforts, forcing about 15,000 people to flee and threatening to deepen a humanitarian disaster caused by the eight-month-old civil war.
Clashes and air-strikes engulfed locations around Wad Madani over the weekend, with the U.S. urging the Rapid Support Forces militia that’s battling Sudan’s army to halt its attack.
The city, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of the capital, Khartoum, and the broader Al-Jazirah state host nearly half a million people who’ve escaped violence elsewhere in the North African country.
“Wad Madani has become a safe haven for displaced civilians and is an important hub for international humanitarian relief efforts,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. “A continued RSF advance risks mass civilian casualties and significant disruption of humanitarian assistance efforts.”
The eruption of a new front in central Sudan also threatens to derail fragile international efforts to broker a new cease-fire in the conflict that’s killed more than 12,000 people and forced 6.7 million from their homes. The United Nations is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe, with 25 million — more than half Sudan’s population — in need of aid.
The U.N. said 14,000 to 15,000 people were seeking refuge west of Wad Madani and elsewhere in the state, which is known as Sudan’s breadbasket due to its rich farmland. Videos on social media showed people hastily loading their belongings onto trucks. The local government announced a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.
Sudan’s war broke out in mid-April when the military and RSF, which jointly overthrew a civilian-led government in 2021, turned on each other in a battle for sole control. African, U.S. and Saudi Arabian officials are trying to arrange a landmark meeting between RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan before year’s end.
There was escalation on the diplomatic front, too, with the neighboring nation of Chad on Saturday giving four Sudanese diplomats 72 hours to leave. The order came after a Sudanese army official accused Chad of interfering in the conflict, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Allegations by Yasser Al-Atta, the assistant commander in chief of Sudan’s army, that the United Arab Emirates has given support to the RSF sparked a diplomatic feud earlier this month.
The Gulf nation has repeatedly denied any interference, saying it’s committed to de-escalation and the provision of humanitarian relief through a field hospital located in the Chadian city of Amdjarass, close to the Sudanese border.
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