War in Sudan hits the one-month mark: Sudan’s factions carried on with their fighting yesterday despite ongoing peace talks and an agreement to protect civilians. Reuters reported air strikes hitting the country’s most populous city, Omdurman, and shelling in the north of the capital Khartoum. The fighting has killed 676 people and injured around 5.6k others as of 11 May, according to UN data.

The opposite of an olive branch: Head of the Sudanese army and the country’s de facto leader General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan has frozen the bank accounts of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its companies, the army said in a statement yesterday.

Some 153k Sudanese have fled the country since the fighting first broke, according to UNdata. The majority of refugees — 76k Sudanese and 5k foreigners — fled to Egypt, according to the data, which was last updated on 10 May. Chad has taken in 60k and the Central African Republic 6.3k.

PAKISTAN DEBT TROUBLES-

Pakistan needs to secure “significant additional financing” -IMF: Indebted Pakistan needs more financing in order to ensure the success of the IMF’s long-awaited ninth review to unlock USD 1.1 bn in funding that has been stalled since November. “Significant additional financing is essential to support the authorities’ policy efforts and to ensure successful completion of the ninth review,” IMF director of communication Julie Kozack said during a presser last week.

REMEMBER- The funding, part of the USD 6 bn bailout agreed with the IMF in 2019, was due to be released last year but has been delayed after the country failed to meet some of the conditions. Moody’s is now warning that without IMF funding Pakistan could default later this year.

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