Sudan’s army and RSF are engaging in battle that has killed dozens of civilians
The conflict between the Sudanese Army and the Resurrection Forces: a fight to the death between leaders of the Sudan army and the RSF
Jeffrey is a former U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa. He calls the situation a fight to the death between leaders of the Sudanese army and theRSF.
A doctors’ group said at least 56 civilians were killed and that it believed there were dozens of additional deaths among the rival forces. The Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate said close to 600 people were wounded, including civilians and fighters.
The alliance between the two men fell apart after some recent talks. As part of the effort to transition to civilian rule, the negotiations wanted to integrate the RSF into the military.
Tahani Abass, a prominent rights advocates, said there were fierce battles around the military headquarters, Khartoum International Airport and state television headquarters.
She said the battles had not finished from her family home near the military headquarters. “They are shooting against each other in the streets. It’s a war in the residential areas.
Abass said her family spent the night huddling on the ground floor of their home. She said the children were crying and screaming with every explosion, and no one was able to sleep. Sounds of gunfire were heard while she was speaking to The Associated Press.
The Sudanese Rapid Support Forces and Security Forces: Clashes after the UN-brokered Humanitary Coupling in 2021
The military and the RSF both claimed to be in control of strategic locations in Khartoum and elsewhere in the county. Their claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Clashes first erupted Saturday between the country’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who told CNN on Sunday the army had broken a UN-brokered temporary humanitarian ceasefire.
Top diplomats, including the U.S. Secretary of State, the U.N. secretary-general, the EU foreign policy chief, the head of the Arab League and the head of the African Union Commission urged the sides to stop fighting. The Security Council is at odds over the crises around the world but they want to end the hostilities and return to dialogue.
The US Secretary of State consulted with the foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “We agreed it was essential for the parties to immediately end hostilities without pre-condition,” he said in a statement early Sunday.
Human Rights watch accused security forces under Burhan of detaining hundreds of protesters anddisappearing scores of people following the coup in 2021.
Eyewitnesses in Khartoum told CNN on Monday they heard mortars and artillery in the early hours of the morning, with the fighting intensifying after dawn prayers in the direction of Khartoum International Airport and Sudanese Army garrison sites.
Residents in neighborhoods east of the airport told CNN they saw warplanes bombing sites east of the command. “We saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street, and immediately after that, anti-aircraft artillery fired massively towards the planes,” one eyewitness said.
Emmanuel Akinwotu: How Sudan Lost Control and the Army seized Control of the Armed Forces Reported by the World Health Organization
The WHO said hospitals were suffering shortages of specialized medical personnel, including anesthesiologists. “Water and power cuts are affecting the functionality of health facilities, and shortages of fuel for hospital generators are also being reported,” the WHO said on Sunday.
The army chief and his rival lost control of the military, according to him. When questioned if his goal was to rule Sudan, he said that he had no intentions and that there should be a civilian government.
On Up, NPR’sEmmanuel Akinwotu described. First civilians are scared because places they used to eat, buy groceries, see family and friends have become battlefields right before their eyes
The only thing we can hear is boom after boom. What exactly is happening and where we don’t know, but it feels like it’s directly over our heads,” they wrote.
Access to information is also limited, with the government-owned national TV channel now off the air. Television employees told CNN that it is in the hands of the RSF.
UN response to the Sudan crisis: A critical eye on the status of the crisis and the urgency of restoring civilian leadership in a militarized country
The conflict has put other countries and organizations on high alert, with the United Nations’ World Food Program temporarily halting all operations in Sudan after three employees were killed in clashes on Saturday.
The UN has been looted and a WFP- managed aircraft was destroyed in Khartoum, making it harder for the WFP to get aid and workers to people in need.
Meanwhile, Mexico is working to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, with the country’s foreign minister saying Sunday it is looking to “expedite” their exit.
The United States embassy in Sudan said Sunday there were no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation yet for Americans in the country, citing the closure of the Khartoum airport. It advised US citizens to stay indoors and shelter in place, adding that it would make an announcement “if evacuation of private US citizens becomes necessary.”
There has been calls for peace and negotiations. The head of the African Union Commission is going to be in Sudan on Monday to try and stop the fighting.
“People in Sudan want the military back in the barracks, they want democracy, they want a civilian-led government. Sudan needs to return to that path,” Blinken said, speaking on the sidelines of the G7 foreign minister talks in Japan on Monday.
The UN mission in Sudan said that the country’s warring groups agreed to a “proposal,” although it is not clear what that entails.
Defending democracy with shelling: The case of Al-Moallem hospital in Sudan, the country’s largest civilian prisoner’s camp
“There’s heavy gunfire all over the city. Military jets are over us all the time. There’s a small market nearby but there’s a shortage in food. She told Up First on Monday that she couldn’t go out.
“In the end, that partnership did not define who would end up being on top,” Feltman says. “So what you have now is a fight to the death for who is going to prevail and should military rule continue in Sudan.”
Feltman says Sudan’s effort toward democracy, which had been galvanized by widespread protests, was effectively derailed in October 2021 when the civilian government was overthrown and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his cabinet were jailed by the military leadership.
Sudan has a tendency to shut down internet access during protests and coups. According to Akinwotu’s report, this time it hasn’t happened because of a propaganda war going on on both sides, as well as the internet.
Feltman, who is the John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, says a cease-fire “should not lead to another process by which the belligerents are able to divvy up the spoils of power under the guise of stability.”
The leaders of the opposing sides, Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy and paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have traded blame for the instigating the fighting that has engulfed the country.
Witnesses have little doubt about what happened at Al-Moallem hospital, where intense shelling forced staffers to evacuate, leaving some patients behind.
The hospital is meters away from Sudan’s army headquarters, and medics said it was treating scores of wounded soldiers and their families. The hospital’s maternity ward was struck in the shelling, causing a wall there to collapse, according to hospital employees.
One medic said that a child died in the building. Two other children were seriously wounded. Medics and patients huddled together in the corridor, waiting for the shelling to stop.
At first we were praying for salvation,” the medic said. When the shelling got worse, we began to pray that the most painless part of the body would be spared and died painlessly.
“Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel,” another medic said. There was a smell of death.
“Food in the fridge and freezers have gone bad,” Eman Abu Garjah, a Sudanese-British doctor based in Khartoum, told CNN. “We don’t have any supplies at the moment, that’s why we’re trying to go somewhere where the shops are open.”
After early morning prayers you have to take a little bit of a break and wake up again for afternoon prayers, but typically you have a little rest after that. But sleep was just not possible. The windows were shaking and the house was rattling.
The brutal attack on Sudan’s Janjaweed forces by a paramilitary leader: CNN’s Larry Madowo meets with Burhan
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Burhan accused Dagalo of attempting to “capture and kill” him during an attempt by the paramilitary leader to seize the presidential palace.
“Yesterday and today a humanitarian ceasefire proposal was put forward and agreed upon,” said Burhan from army headquarters, as gunshots rang out in the background.
He said that he did not abide by the ceasefire. The attempts to storm the Army headquarters are heard right now. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight.”
“We’re under attack from all directions,” Dagalo told CNN’s Larry Madowo in a telephone interview on Sunday. “We stopped fighting and the other side did not, which put us in a predicament and we had to keep fighting to defend ourselves,” he claimed.
He was the leader of Sudan’s notorious Janjaweed forces, which were accused of human rights violations and atrocities in the early 2000s.
International powers have expressed alarm at the current violence in Sudan. Apart from concerns over civilians there are likely other motivations at play, the country is resource-rich and strategically located. CNN reported on how Russia has been using its military leaders to smuggle gold out of Sudan.
