The latest outbreak of fighting comes as nations gathered at the U.N. General Assembly called for an end to the war and for aid to be fast-tracked to millions in need.
Sudan’s military launched a major operation in the capital, Khartoum, on Thursday, a senior Sudanese military official said, in an effort to regain territory it lost during the early months of a civil war that has torn apart one of Africa’s largest countries.
The offensive began just hours before Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, blaming the opposition forces and their international backers for the devastation the conflict has caused.
“The war began with an attempt to seize power through force,” he said. But “with time, it has transformed into a total war against the Sudanese people and their state.”
The war began 17 months ago, when General al-Burhan and his rival, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, turned their forces on each other.
It set off a humanitarian crisis in the northeast African nation that is now spreading across borders. More than half of Sudan’s 48 million people are enduring acute hunger, and 10 million have been forced from their homes and fled within the country, into neighboring countries like Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, and even abroad.
While United States-mediated peace talks last month opened up some routes that had been blocked to deliveries of critical aid, the army failed to show up at the talks, and hopes for a cease-fire are remote.
