Fighting continues to rage in Sudan. More than 185 people have been killed and 1,800 others injured in the country where the struggle for power between the two generals in charge since the 2021 putsch has gained in intensity.
In the sky of Khartoum, the planes of the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, de facto leader of the country since the putsch of 2021, try to overcome the intense fire from the armored vehicles of the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF ) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, his second in charge for the coup d’etat who has become his sworn enemy since Saturday.
After three employees of the World Food Program (WFP) were killed in Darfur (west), humanitarians denounce looting and the UN of “serious violations” against its staff. On Monday evening, the European Union announced that its ambassador had been “attacked in his residence” in Khartoum, where street fighting and bombardments are incessant and spare no sector.
A few hours later, the United States reported that one of its diplomatic convoys came under fire. “All of our personnel are safe and sound,” but this act is “irresponsible,” said Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State. “This incident is still under investigation to determine what exactly happened. According to initial information we have, this is the work of forces associated with the RSF,” he said, recalling that the convoy had well-identified license plates.
Mr. Blinken also said he spoke separately on Tuesday with the two rival generals and insisted with them “on the urgency of reaching a ceasefire”, which “would make it possible to provide humanitarian aid to people affected by the fighting, to reunite Sudanese families (dispersed by the fighting, editor’s note) and to ensure the security of members of the international community in Khartoum”, he said.
Because of the violence, several NGOs and UN agencies have stopped operating in the country where hunger affects more than one in three inhabitants. At least two hospitals in the capital have been evacuated “as rockets and bullets riddled their walls”, said doctors who say they have no more blood bags or equipment to treat the injured.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it received 136 wounded in its last functional hospital in North Darfur on Monday. “The majority are civilians who were shot at, many of them children,” the NGO reports. “Eleven died” on Saturday and Sunday due to lack of equipment and personnel.
In Khartoum, since fighting broke out on Saturday, residents have been barricading themselves in their homes. Above them, columns of thick black smoke rise, the smell of gunpowder pricks the nostrils and everyone wonders when the electricity and running water will return.
The UN calls on the two generals to “immediately cease hostilities” as they could be “devastating for the country and the entire region”. But the UN envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, said he was not optimistic about a quick return to dialogue as “it is difficult to assess in which direction the balance is changing”.
The conflict had been latent for weeks between General Burhane and General Daglo, whose ex-militiamen from the Darfur war had become the army’s official auxiliaries in recent years. On Monday, diplomatic contacts appeared to intensify. At the end of the day, Egypt, a large influential neighbor, announced that it had discussed the situation with Saudi Arabia, South Sudan and Djibouti, three other important players in Sudan, as well as with Paris.
Qatar for its part spoke with the President of the Commission of the African Union (AU), Moussa Faki Mahamat, supposed to go as soon as possible to Sudan, above which no plane flies anymore. A sign that the subject is of concern to Cairo, President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi convened a rare defense council on Monday evening. He said he pleaded with both sides for “a return to the negotiating table” and said he was working for the “return” of Egyptian military “trainers” abducted Saturday from a northern air base by the RSF. Hemedti assures that they are “safe”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately on Tuesday with the two rival generals vying for power in Sudan and stressed “the urgency of achieving a ceasefire”, according to his spokesperson. Vedant Patel. A ceasefire “would help deliver humanitarian aid to people affected by the fighting, reunite Sudanese families, and provide security for members of the international community in Khartoum,” Antony Blinken said. by Vedant Patel in a statement.
It was still impossible on Monday to know which force controls what. The FSR announced that they took the airport and entered the presidential palace, which the army denied. The army claims to hold the headquarters of its staff, one of the main power complexes in Khartoum. As for state television, after two days of fighting in its vicinity, it now broadcasts images and press releases from the army, which claims to have regained ground in many places.
“It is the first time in the history of Sudan since independence (in 1956) that there is such a level of violence in the center, in Khartoum”, assures Agence France-Presse Kholood Khair, who founded the Confluence Advisory research center in Khartoum. Khartoum “has always been the safest place in Sudan, during the deadly rebel wars” launched in Darfur and elsewhere in the 2000s, she said.
But since Saturday, doctors report power cuts in operating rooms, say that patients, sometimes children, and their relatives “have no more food or drink”.
