CAIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2023) The Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on Sunday exchanged accusations of injuring a French national during the evacuation of French diplomats from the African country engulfed in armed clashes.
"The Rapid Support (Forces) militia committed several violations against diplomatic missions last night and today ... The French embassy convoy was attacked by gunfire, which led to their return and disrupted the evacuation. One of the French nationals was wounded by a sniper's bullet," the armed forces said on social media.
The paramilitary group, in turn, pinned the blame for the attack on the regular armed forces.
"On the morning of 23 April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces were attacked by aircraft during the evacuation of French nationals from their embassy, passing through Bahri (the city of Khartoum North) to Omdurman, which endangered the lives of French nationals by injuring one of them," the RSF said on Twitter, claiming that they were assisting the evacuation efforts.
Earlier in the day, US President Joe Biden confirmed that he had ordered US military forces to evacuate US government personnel from the US embassy in Sudan's capital of Khartoum. The French Foreign Ministry later announced that it had also started evacuating its citizens and diplomatic personnel from Sudan.
On April 15, violent clashes between the Sudanese regular armed forces and the RSF broke out, with the epicenter in Khartoum. Government forces accused the RSF of mutiny and launched airstrikes against their bases. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the head of the Sudanese military, issued a decree disbanding the RSF. The sides agreed to a three-day truce starting Friday in connection with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
On Thursday, the Sudanese Health Ministry said that the death toll in the armed clashes surpassed 600. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reported on Friday that 413 people were killed and 3,551 others were injured.
