Sudan fighting in its 18th day: A list of key events

Here is the situation on Tuesday, May 2, 2023:

Fighting

• Fierce fighting between rival generals raged in Sudan despite a new ceasefire extension.

• Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands wounded as air raids and artillery exchanges have shaken Khartoum and other states, sparking the exodus of thousands of Sudanese to neighbouring countries.

• Beyond Khartoum, lawlessness has engulfed the West Darfur state capital, el-Geneina, where at least 96 people have been reported killed since the start of the fighting, according to UN figures.

Humanitarian crisis

• At least 528 people have been killed and about 4,600 wounded in the violence, according to Sudan’s health ministry.

• The United Nations refugee agency said it was bracing for “the possibility that more than 800,000 people may flee the fighting in Sudan for neighbouring countries.”

• Egypt said 40,000 Sudanese had already crossed its border.

• More than 330,000 people have been displaced, more than 70 per cent of them in West and South Darfur states, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Diplomacy and evacuations

• Russia’s armed forces said they would evacuate more than 200 people from Sudan on Tuesday on four military transport planes.

• Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths arrived in Nairobi on a mission to find ways to bring relief to the millions of civilians trapped inside Sudan.

• Kenyan President William Ruto said the conflict had reached “catastrophic levels” with the warring generals declining “to heed the calls by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the African Union and the international community to cease fire”.

• The US Navy’s USS Brunswick arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Jeddah, carrying 308 people out of Sudan, according to Al-Ekhbariya TV.

• The top UN aid official in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, warned that the situation was turning into “a full-blown catastrophe”.