The fighting erupted on April 15 between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.
The chaos was an alarming turn for Sudan, a large, strategically significant state that serves as a bridge between North and sub-Saharan Africa. Only four years ago, a jubilant popular uprising toppled al-Bashir, the widely detested ruler of three decades.
It was the first such outbreak since both joined forces to oust veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 and was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition towards the civilian rule.
Fighting is spread across the country, where the two groups battled for control of airfields and military bases.
Sudan’s army appeared to gain the upper hand on April 16 in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces, pounding their bases with air strikes.
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Hemedti agreed on a three-hour pause in fighting on April 16 from 4 pm local time to allow humanitarian evacuations proposed by the United Nations, the UN mission in Sudan said, but the deal was widely ignored after a brief period of relative calm.
As night fell, residents reported the boom of artillery and the roar of warplanes in the Kafouri district of Bahri, which has an RSF base across the Nile river from the capital Khartoum.
Reuters reported that the army was renewing air strikes on RSF bases in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the Nile, and the Kafouri and Sharg El-Nil districts of adjacent Bahri, putting RSF fighters to flight. Apart from Khartoum, the region of Darfur also saw major clashes forcing many people to flee displacement camps and their homes.
State television cut its transmission on April 16 afternoon, a move employees said was meant to prevent propaganda broadcasts by the RSF after its forces entered the main state broadcaster building in Omdurman and started to air pro-RSF programming.
The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UN Security Council, European Union and African Union have appealed for a quick end to the hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.
Efforts by neighbours and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on April 16. Egypt offered to mediate, and African regional bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development plans to send the Presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti as soon as possible to reconcile Sudanese groups in conflict.
Death toll estimates have varied. The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors reported 56 civilians killed, as well as “tens of deaths” among security forces, and an estimated 600 wounded.
An Indian national identified as Albert Augestine succumbed to his injuries on April 16 amid army-paramilitary clashes in Sudan, informed the Indian embassy in Sudan in a tweet.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation says more than 83 people have been killed and more than 1,100 people injured across the country since April 13, when the RSF began mobilising its forces. It does not specify how many civilians have died in the fighting. Among the dead are three staff members of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which has suspended its operations in the country.
Deteriorating condition of Khartoum:
A statement by the army said there were ongoing clashes in the vicinity of military headquarters in central Khartoum and said that RSF soldiers were stationing snipers on buildings but that they were “monitored and being dealt with.”
Earlier on April 16, witnesses and residents told Reuters that the army had carried out air strikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region and managed to destroy most of the paramilitaries’ facilities.
They said the army had also wrested back control over much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF after both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles raged.
On April 15- 16, the RSF claimed to occupy sites in the capital Khartoum and the adjoining city of Omdurman, as well as in the western region of Darfur and Merowe Airport in the North of the country.
Also, RSF members remained inside Khartoum international airport, besieged by the army, but it was holding back from striking them to avoid wrecking major damage, witnesses said. Both sides claimed control of key military and civilian installations, but the claims were impossible to verify.
“We’re scared; we haven’t slept for 24 hours because of the noise and the house shaking. We’re worried about running out of water and food, and medicine for my diabetic father,” Huda, a young resident in Southern Khartoum, told the Reuters news agency.
“There’s so much false information and everyone is lying. We don’t know when this will end, how it will end,” she added.
But a major problem, witnesses and residents said, was posed by thousands of heavily armed RSF members deployed inside neighbourhoods of Khartoum and other cities, with no authority able to control them.
A protracted confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections.
Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from toppled strongman Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back Islamist influence and improve stability in the region.
There are several who claim that perhaps Sudan is tumbling into a civil war-like situation. However, it is early to say, as the circumstances in Sudan are volatile. It is important for Sudan to reach a settlement without external interventions as opportunists would want to leverage the situation, and Sudan may witness more dire consequences.
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