Sudan: Hostilities continue – Anxiety for the trapped Greeks

Fighting is raging in Sudan, with the army carrying out airstrikes even in districts of Khartoum, in an attempt to wipe out paramilitary troops of the elite "Rapid Reaction Force" who tried to seize the Presidential Palace as well as the capital's international airport.

In the fighting between the army and paramilitary forces, about 200 people have lost their lives and 1,800 have been injured, while hospitals have been destroyed.

At the same time, the anxiety is peaking for the 15 Orthodox - Greeks and two children among them - who remain trapped in the metropolitan Church of the Annunciation. The supplies are enough for a few more days while the fighting escalates.

The international community is calling for de-escalation, but neither side seems ready to lay down their arms.

Blinken talks with the warring sides

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who is visiting Japan, held separate talks today with the two rival generals embroiled in Sudan's bloody power struggle and insisted there was "an urgency to declare a ceasefire".

The ceasefire "would allow humanitarian aid to be distributed to people affected by the fighting, Sudanese families to be reunited and guarantees for the safety of members of the international community in Khartoum", Mr Blinken told his interlocutors, according to with a press release issued by the representative of the American Foreign Ministry, Vedant Patel.

Unprecedented battles

The weeks-long power struggle between the forces of two generals who seized power in a 2021 coup - Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)- erupted in deadly violence on Saturday

Analysts say the...