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The second day of clashes between the Sudanese Army and the powerful Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitary group leaves at least 59 dead and hundreds injured. More than a thousand civilians managed to take advantage of a short truce agreed to leave Khartoum, the capital.
Sudan ends its Sunday April 16 with more clashes between the Sudanese Army, commanded by General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitary group, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.
Bombardments and military planes accompanied the nightfall in Kafouri, in the Bahri district, where there is a FAR military base, and in Omduram. Khartoum, the capital, was the main scene of new military exchanges.
The two generals, who entered into a direct power struggle yesterday, agreed to a three-hour truce to achieve the evacuation of civilians. Despite the fact that the pause was quickly broken, more than 1,200 people were able to leave Khartoum, a Sudanese Red Crescent worker reported to EFE.
The clashes have so far left 59 people dead, including three workers from the UN World Food Program. Nearly 600 injured people are also registered.
The World Health Organization (WHO) offered higher figures: 83 deaths and 1,126 injuries. However, his record begins on April 13, two days before the fighting began, in an example that tensions had begun to escalate.
It is difficult to know with certainty the positions of both sides and their victories or defeats: according to testimonies on the ground collected by the Reuters agency, it seems that the Sudanese regular army managed to hit some of the FAR bases hard. The military also claimed to have partially regained control of the presidential palace, assaulted by the paramilitaries, and to besiege the international airport, seized yesterday by the FAR.
Egypt and South Sudan offer to mediate
The international community has been working since yesterday, when the first clashes broke out, to find a way out of the situation. The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, called for calm and also harshly condemned those responsible for the deaths of humanitarian workers. “They must be brought to justice without delay,” he wrote on Twitter.
The African Union announced that they would send a representative to Sudan to try to broker a ceasefire. The Arab League also discussed the situation at an emergency meeting on Sunday in Cairo.
In addition, Egypt and South Sudan offered to mediate between the two sides of the conflict “since the escalation of violence will only lead to a further deterioration of the situation.” Both countries have already sponsored dialogues and negotiations in the deep conflict that Sudan is going through since the deposition of Omar Al Bashir in 2019.
However, at the Arab League meeting, Sudan called for “no international interference” in the resolution of the conflict. In the words of Al Sadiq Omar Abdalá, the country’s representative within this association, underlined the demand to leave “the matter to the Sudanese so that they complete the arrangement among themselves.”
A proxy war between two generals
The tensions between Burhan and Hemdeti were not a secret in Sudan. Despite the fact that the two allied to overthrow a civilian government in 2021, rivalries were not long in coming, especially as a result of disagreements over how to integrate Hemdeti’s FAR paramilitary forces into Burhan’s regular Sudanese army.
The coup d’état by both generals, now at odds, put an end to the democratic transition that Sudan had been pursuing since the revolt that ended the government of Omar Al Bashir in 2019.
Now, this new wave of violence seems to push the goal of a civilian government and democratic elections in Sudan even further away. The Army refuses to negotiate with the FAR and asks that the forces be dissolved; Hemdeti accused Burhan of being a “liar” and a “criminal”.
With EFE and Reuters
