Omar al-Bashir, the deposed Sudanese strongman, has been missing since an attack on the prison where he was being detained; one of the warring parties claims he is being held in a secure place, while the other claims he has been released.
In a statement on Tuesday, Ahmed Haroun announced that he and other former Bashir government officials had fled Kober prison and would be in charge of their own safety.
Even after the warring parties declared a ceasefire, fighting broke out again in Sudan late on Tuesday, forcing more civilians to flee Khartoum.
After talks that were mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) decided on a 72-hour truce that will start on Tuesday.
Gunshots and explosions could be heard in Omdurman, one of Khartoum’s sister cities on the Nile River, where the army was using drones to strike RSF strongholds.
The UN Security Council was informed on Tuesday by Volker Perthes, the U.N.’s special representative for Sudan, that the truce “seems to be holding in some parts so far.”
But he said that neither party showed readiness to “seriously negotiate, suggesting that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible.”
“This is a miscalculation,” Perthes said, adding that Khartoum’s airport was operational but the tarmac damaged.
With no indication that the warring parties are prepared to engage in real negotiations, the first Turkish civilians who had been evacuated from Sudan returned to Turkey on Wednesday, according to Saudi Arabia, which also claimed to have evacuated 1,674 other people in addition to 13 of its own citizens.
The Turks traveled overland from Khartoum to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Later on Wednesday, additional flights were anticipated to transport the Turkish nationals who had entered Ethiopia from Sudan.