War in Sudan: residents appeal for donations to survive

A "technical" plane crash left nine people dead on Sunday evening in Sudan, where residents are appealing for donations of food to survive in the East African country that has been ravaged for more than three months by a bloody war between the army and paramilitaries.

As a result of the constant fighting, particularly in the capital Khartoum, millions of people have found themselves trapped in their homes, some without water, particularly in the northern suburbs of Khartoum. They have electricity only intermittently and almost no food, according to local residents.

To come to their aid, a neighbourhood committee in Khartoum launched an "urgent appeal" to the population on Sunday: "We need to support each other, give food and money to those around us", wrote the al-Danaqla committee.

Abbas Mohammed Babiker, a resident of Khartoum North, told AFP that his family had to limit itself to one meal a day. "And we only have enough left for two days," he added.

"With the fighting, there is no longer a market and, in any case, we have no more money," added another resident, Essam Abbas. At least all civil servants have not received their salaries since March.

Last week, the violinist Khaled Senhouri, a leading figure in Khartoum's music scene, "starved to death" in Omdourman, a town opposite the capital Khartoum, because he could no longer leave his home to buy supplies, several of his friends reported on Facebook.

In Port Sudan, on the east coast spared by the war, nine people, including four soldiers, died on Sunday evening when a civilian plane crashed, the army announced.

"One child survived" in the crash of this "civilian Antonov aircraft" at the airport, the only one in operation in the country, it added.

Since 15 April, air raids by the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and artillery and drone fire by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have killed 3,900 people, according to a new report by the NGO Acled, and displaced 3.3 million people and refugees.

Before the war, one in three Sudanese already suffered from hunger. Today, more than half of Sudan's 48 million people need humanitarian aid to survive, but NGOs and the UN say they are denied access.

On Sunday, in Port Sudan, where many officials are now based, the authorities announced the first export of gold from Sudan - Africa's third largest producer - since the start of the war.

The 226 kilograms were sent to the United Arab Emirates, the main buyer of Sudanese gold, officials told a press conference.

At the same time, the state-owned Mining Resources company announced the death of eight miners in an artisanal mine in the same state of Port Sudan.