One of Sudan’s most prominent singers, Shaden Gardood, has been killed in crossfire in the Sudanese city of Omdurman.
Gardood died amid clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Friday.
The 37-year-old’s death came only one day after the warring parties signed a deal to alleviate civilian suffering.
Fighting erupted in Sudan in April over a vicious power struggle within the country’s military leadership.
Gardood lived in the al-Hashmab neighbourhood, where RSF presence has increased in recent days.
Her niece, Heraa Hassan Mohammed, confirmed her death on Facebook and said: “She was like a mother and a beloved to me, we were just chatting, may God give her mercy.”
She then wrote the Islamic phrase used when a person dies, “inna lillah wa inna ilah rajoon.”
In a video which circulated on social media, Gardood said she was trying to hide from the shelling and asked her son to close the windows.
She could be heard saying: “Go away from the doors and the windows… in the name of Allah, we are going to die ready wearing our full clothes… you should wear this, we will die in a better shape.”
Gardood regularly made live videos on Facebook talking about the clashes and shelling in her neighbourhood, and she wrote intensively against the war.
In one of her last posts on Facebook, she said: “We have been trapped in our houses for 25 days… we are hungry and living in an enormous fear, but are full of ethics and values,” referring to looting across Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
