CAIRO: Some 16,000 people have crossed the border from Sudan into Egypt including 14,000 Sudanese citizens, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Hundreds of people have been killed in nearly two weeks of conflict between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are locked in a power struggle threatening to destabilize the wider region.
The Sudanese army pounded paramilitaries in the capital Khartoum with air strikes Thursday while deadly fighting flared in Darfur, as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire entered its final hours.
Ahead of the expiry of a three-day truce at midnight (2200 GMT), the army said late Wednesday it had agreed to talks in neighbouring South Sudan on extending it “at the initiative of IGAD,â€Â the East African regional bloc.
There have been multiple truce efforts since fighting broke out on April 15 between Sudan’s army led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. All have failed.
The fighting has continued despite the US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on Tuesday, with warplanes patrolling the skies over the capital's northern suburbs as fighters on the ground exchanged artillery and heavy machinegun fire, witnesses said.
