Sudan: At least 15 civilians killed by shells

At least 15 civilians were killed on Saturday by "shells falling on their homes" in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, scene of deadly fighting between the army and paramilitaries since April, a medical source told AFP.

The bodies of the victims arrived at Al-Nao hospital in Omdurman, a close suburb of Khartoum, said this source on condition of anonymity.

The war between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR, paramilitary) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, left more than 9,000 dead according to an estimate by the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), considered largely underestimated.

It also displaced more than 6 million people and destroyed most infrastructure.

Incapable of gaining a decisive advantage since the start of the war, both camps are stalling but neither intends to make any concessions at the negotiating table.

Talks between the belligerents resumed a few days ago in the Saudi city of Jeddah. They aim “to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, to establish ceasefires and other confidence-building measures, and to progress towards a permanent cessation of hostilities,” according to Riyadh.

Previous attempts at mediation resulted in only brief truces, all of which were systematically violated.

For weeks, the FSR has claimed to be making progress in Darfur, their historic bastion on the border with Chad, where the conflict has taken an ethnic turn, with the UN investigating a possible "genocide".

On Saturday, the RSF announced that they had taken control of a military base in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, where a communications cut has raised fears of new atrocities.

Clementine Nkweta-Salami, humanitarian coordinator of the UN mission in Sudan, said the reports that "civilians are caught in the ongoing fighting" in Darfur are reminiscent of "the events that occurred in El Geneina" in June, when rights groups and witnesses had reported massacres, rapes and mass graves.

The El Geneina military base is the third that the RSF claim to have conquered in a week, after those of Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, and Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

The violence has forced more than half a million people to flee Darfur for neighboring Chad.

Demonstration in support of Palestine in Dakar

Thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday across the world, particularly in Europe and the United States, in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hit by Israeli bombings in retaliation for the bloody Hamas attack in Israel on October 7.

In Senegal, in front of the great mosque of Dakar, a demonstration in support of the Palestinians mobilized around 200 people.

“I am not here as an Arab or a Muslim. I am here as a human being ,” said demonstrator Farida Samane in the crowd.

"I am here today, like people all over the world, to demand an end to the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, to tell Israel to stop this massacre, to tell Israel that the children it is massacring "have done nothing wrong, to tell Israel to respect international law, to tell Israel to stop massacring schools, and to tell Israel that cutting off Gaza's water supply is a crime against humanity. " said Ismaël Diallo, also in the crowd.

In October, Senegalese President Macky Sall launched a call for "de-escalation and respect for international humanitarian law" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stressing that "a military solution" could not be found .