Since last Saturday, Sudan has been the scene of violent clashes that have left more than 100 civilians dead -including three United Nations employees- and almost a thousand injured. The death toll could be much higher since the emergency teams cannot move in several areas of the country due to the intensity of the fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, the two sides that are fighting for the can.
The violence has erupted after weeks of clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group. The country was on the brink of conflict after RSF units had mobilized in several cities without the consent of the Army. At its head is General Abdelfatah Al Burhan and leading the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti). Both control the country due to the absence of a government for months. The biggest disagreement between the two is the future integration of the RSF into the country’s armed forces.
The Rapid Support Forces are Sudan’s main paramilitary group, which analysts say now has 100,000 fighters and bases across the country. They have their origin in the Janjaweed militia, which emerged in the 1980s in Darfur. In 2013, Omar al Bashir gave his leaders military ranks before deploying them to crush a rebellion in South Darfur – a conflict dating back more than a decade that has left 300,000 dead and 1.8 million displaced. ). A year later, they were accepted by the Sudanese Constitution as a security body. In 2019, however, the Dagalo-led RSF cooperated with the country’s military to overthrow Bashir. This year they were accused of human rights violations, including the massacre of 120 protesters in June 2019.
Actually, it all started in December 2018. Then a revolt began, initially for economic reasons, to protest the rise in bread and other basic products. It was an adjustment measure proposed by the International Monetary Fund and agreed with Omar al Bashir (who had been presiding over the country with an iron fist for almost three decades). Week after week, the population turned on itself against the government due to the crisis in a country that, paradoxically, has significant oil reserves. Omar al Bashir – who is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes – was finally deposed in 2019 by a military coup.
The army agreed to share power with the civilians and, while the protests continued, agreed to the formation of a Sovereign Council made up of both civilians and the military in which the economist Abdalá Hamdok was appointed prime minister. But the deal blew up. In October 2021, the Sudanese army, led by General al Burhan, carried out another coup d’etat and placed Prime Minister Hamdok under house arrest. Although weeks later he was released and reinstated in office, he ended up resigning in January 2022.
It must be specified that the 2021 coup had not been something isolated. Three other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Chad, Mali and Guinea, had also just experienced military uprisings. In a post-pandemic scenario, local circumstances seemed to fuel military elites to seize power. In Sudan, the coup ended reforms initiated by the transitional government and supervised by the IMF. Foreign aid stopped coming and that made an already very precarious humanitarian situation even worse.
General AbdelFatah Al Burhan has ruled de facto since 2021: his number two is Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. In December 2022, the two signed an initial agreement for another transition and civilian rule. But on April 5, the signing of the agreement was stalled because of plans to integrate the RSF into the armed forces and because, in reality, both leaders want to control the country and neither is willing to concede. Burhan and Dagalo accuse each other of being responsible for the violent outbreak.
While the Arab League, the United States and the United Kingdom demand an “immediate cessation” of the violence, the explosions and shots continue to resound in Khartoum, where covered in the smell of gunpowder and with the majority of its inhabitants barricaded in their houses, paralyzed by the fear. To this we must add the cutoff of all basic services in numerous neighborhoods that the bombings have left without electricity or drinking water. Hospitals are also saturated.
The violence coincides with Ramadan, when Muslims cannot drink or eat during the day; so going for water in the middle of the night seems almost impossible. The situation in the country is not much better. According to the UN, more than a third of the population lives in severe food insecurity. To this panorama we must add various geopolitical factors. The country’s strategic location – close to the Red Sea, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa – in addition to its agricultural and oil wealth attract regional interests that make a peaceful transition difficult. Globally, Western powers fear the potential for a Russian base in the country (the first on the continent), which Sudanese military leaders gave their blessing in February.
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