Sudanese crowd at borders to escape amid shaky truce

Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt and at a main port, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said Wednesday. In the capital Khartoum, the intensity of fighting eased on the second day of a three-day truce. Taking advantage of relative calm, many residents in Khartoum and the neighboring city of Omdurman emerged from their homes to seek food and water, lining up at bakeries or grocery stores, after days being trapped inside by the fighting between the army and a rival paramilitary group. Some inspected shops or homes that had been destroyed or looted. “There is a sense of calm in my area and neighborhoods,” said Mahasen Ali, a tea vendor who lives in Khartoum’s southern neighborhood of May. “But all are afraid of what’s next.” Still, gunfire and explosions could be heard in the city, though residents said clashes were in more limited pockets, mainly around the military’s headquarters and the Republican Palace in central Khartoum and around bases in Omdurman across the Nile River. With the future of any truce uncertain, many took the opportunity to join the tens of thousands who have streamed out of the region of the capital in recent days, trying to get out of the crossfire between the forces of Sudan’s two top generals. The generals’ war for power since April 15 has pushed the population to a near breaking point. Food has grown more difficult to obtain, electricity is cut off across much of the capital and other cities, and many hospitals have shut down. Multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations, a heavy blow in a country where a third of the population of 46 million relies on humanitarian assistance. Many Sudanese fear the army and its rival Rapid Support Forces will escalate their battle once the international evacuations of foreigners that began Sunday is completed. The British government, whose airlift is one of the