The head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, made a televised speech on Tuesday to announce a “unilateral” cease-fire on the first day of Eid Al-Adha. “The conspiracy requires of everyone to be awake and ready to respond to the existential threats to our country, and so we call on all the young men and who can defend to not hesitate to play this role, either from where he lives or by joining the armed forces,” Burhan said during the speech. Fighting raged in Khartoum on Tuesday after paramilitaries seized Khartoum’s main police base, and the fighting between Al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces appears to be concentrated around miltary compounds. Elsewhere, also on Tuesday, the UN said the conflict was worsening to “alarming levels” in the west of the country in Darfur. The organization also said the violence in Sudan was likely to drive more than one million refugees out of the African country by October.—AN
