UN rights chief asks Sudan's generals to stop 'senseless violence'

GENEVA - The United Nations human rights chief on Wednesday described the situation in Sudan as "heartbreaking" and made a direct call to the two warring generals to stop sexual violence and spare the lives of civilians.

"General (Abdel Fattah) al-Burhan, General (Mohamed Hamdan) Dagalo, you must issue clear instructions, in no uncertain terms to all those under your command, that there is zero tolerance for sexual violence...civilians must be spared and you must stop this senseless violence now," Volker Turk told a Geneva press briefing.

Clashes between rival military factions could be heard overnight in parts of Sudan's capital, residents said on Wednesday, the second full day of a week-long ceasefire designed to allow for the delivery of aid and lay the ground for a more lasting truce.

The ceasefire, which is being monitored by Saudi Arabia and the United States as well as the warring parties, comes after five weeks of intensive warfare in the capital Khartoum and outbursts of violence in other areas of the country, including the western region of Darfur.

Residents of Omdurman, one of the three cities around the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers that make up Sudan's greater capital, said there had been exchanges of fire late on Tuesday in several areas.

Heavy artillery fire could be heard near the Wadi Sayidna military base on the outskirts of the capital, they said.

"We heard the sound of heavy clashes yesterday night in north Omdurman but the situation is better after the truce. Every day we have hope in the possibility that the nightmare of the war ends," Hassan Awad, a 48-year-old university professor, told Reuters by phone.

The ceasefire brought a relative lull in fighting in Khartoum earlier on Tuesday, though there has so far been little sign of a rapid scale-up in humanitarian relief, with aid workers saying that many of the supplies and staff arriving at Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast have been awaiting security permits and guarantees.