How Sudan went from revolution to civil war

Fighting in the Kafouri and Kalakla areas: A Sudanese journalist’s voice in the night before a military attack on Sudan’s capital

The warring military groups started fighting in Khartoum on Saturday. The two sides battled for control of airports, bases, and military compounds. Violence quickly spilled into the streets and across the country.

Five people tell CNN that Sudan’s paramilitary forces bombarded a hospital in central Khartoum on Sunday, as fighting claimed nearly 100 lives over the weekend.

The military and its rival Rapid Support Forces group had been at war for months. Those tensions had delayed a deal with political parties to get the country back to its short-lived transition to democracy, which was derailed by an October 2021 military coup.

In the Kafouri area, north of Khartoum, clashes and street fights broke out at dawn Monday, prompting residents to begin evacuating women and children from the area, Sudanese journalist Fathi Al-Ardi wrote on Facebook. In the Kalakla area, south of the capital, residents reported the walls of their houses shaking from explosions.

“The battles have not ended,” she said from her family home. “They are shooting against each other in the streets. There is an all out war in the residential areas.

Abass said that her family spent the night on the ground floor of their home. She said the kids were crying and screaming with every explosion because nobody was able to sleep. She was speaking to The Associated Press when she heard gunfire.

Damned hostilities in the wake of the 2019 April 20 coup in Sudan: a statement by U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken

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.

It is unclear how much control the RSF has wrested from the country’s military. Dagalo claims he now controls the country’s main military sites, a claim repeatedly disputed by Burhan.

The UN secretary-general, the EU foreign policy chief, the Arab League and the African Union Commission all urged the sides to stop fighting. Members of the U.N. Security Council, at odds over other crises around the world, called for an immediate end of the hostilities and a return to dialogue.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he 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.

Months before the coup that unseated Bashir in April 2019, Dagalo’s forces opened fire on an anti-Bashir, pro-democracy sit-in in Khartoum, killing at least 118 people.

Residents in the Sudanese capital Khartoum woke up Monday to the sounds of artillery and bombardment by warplanes, as intense fighting continued for a third day and the death toll neared 100, with hundreds more injured.

CNN was told warplanes were bombing sites east of the command. One person said that anti-aircraft gun fire exploded after they saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street.

A Nightmare for Censors and Their Family: On Up, CNN’s Emanuel Akinwotu

Hospitals were experiencing shortages of specialized personnel, including anesthesiologists, according to the WHO. Water and power cuts are affecting the functioning of health facilities, and there are fuel shortages for hospital generators, the WHO said on Sunday.

He speculated that the army chief and his rival, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had lost control of the military. When asked if his endgame was to rule Sudan, Dagalo said he had “no such intentions,” and that there should be a civilian government.

On Up, NPR’s Emanuel Akinwotu described. First time. a “nightmare” for civilians, where “places they used to eat, buy groceries, see family and friends have basically been turned into a battlefield right before their eyes.”

“All we can hear is continuous blast after blast. It feels like it is over to us when we don’t know what is happening.

The government owned national TV channel is no longer on the air, and there is limited access to information. Television employees told CNN that it is in the hands of the RSF.

The Sudan Crisis: Breakdown of Interactions in a Four-Year-Aftermath War, a United Nations Emergency Plan and the US Embassy in Sudan

The war in Sudan has put other countries on high alert, and the World Food Program temporarily stopped operations in Sudan on Saturday after three employees were killed in the conflict.

The international aid agency said the UN and other humanitarian facilities in the country have been attacked, and that the WFP managed aircraft has been damaged by gunfire.

Mexico is attempting to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, with the country’s foreign minister saying Sunday that they are planning to “expedite” their exit.

The United States embassy in Sudan said they had no plans for a government-coordinated movement of Americans out of the country due to the closing of the Khartoum airport. The US citizens were advised to stay indoors, as well as having an announcement made if the need for a private US citizens’evacuation arises.

The fresh clashes have prompted widespread calls for peace and negotiations. The head of the African Union Commission is going to arrive in Sudan on Monday to try and stop the fighting.

Four years ago, almost to the day, the people of Sudan were celebrating a revolution after overthrowing longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. Now the East African country faces the possibility of a complete collapse similar to the chaos we see today in Yemen or Libya.

The UN’s political mission in Sudan has said the country’s two warring factions have agreed to a “proposal” although it is not yet clear what that entails.

“It’s a fight to the death” for the government of Sudan during the 2021-23 General Relative Referendum

There is a lot of gunfire in the city. Military jets are always over us. There’s a small market nearby but there’s a shortage in food. “You can’t leave,” she told Up First on Monday.

“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.”

Hamdok was on the cusp of beginning to turn the economy around when Burhan and the SAF intervened. Burhan didn’t want a civilian government to succeed because it was too much for him. The military coup that removed Hamdok took place in October 2021.

During civilian protests and coups in Sudan, it is common for authorities to shut down internet access across the country. That has not happened this time, and Akinwotu’s reporting suggests that is because there’s a propaganda war going on, as well, and for that, both sides need 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.

What happened in the Al-Moallem hospital, Sudan, during shelling of the maternity ward of Sudan’s army headquarters

Witnesses have little doubt about what happened at Al-Moallem hospital, where intense shelling forced staffers to evacuate, leaving some patients behind.

Medics said the hospital was treating scores of wounded soldiers and their families, which was meters away from Sudan’s army headquarters. The hospital’s maternity ward was struck in the shelling, causing a wall there to collapse, according to hospital employees.

One medic said there was a child who died in the building. Two children are in serious condition. As the shelling intensified, medics and patients huddled together in the corridor and prayed.

The medic said that they initially were praying for salvation. After the shelling got worse, we decided that we would rather have a painless death than have it go wrong and have our body shot in.

“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. The smell of death was all over the place.

The food in the fridge and freezers has gone bad, according to a doctor based in Khartoum. We don’t have any supplies and we’re trying to find someplace that the shops are open.

We wake up for early morning prayers and then have a brief rest before we go to see the doctor. After that, you have a little nap and then go to see the doctor. It’s not possible to sleep. The windows were shaking and the house was rattling.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/africa/sudan-clashes-intl-afr/index.html

Sudan ‘When the paramilitary leader tried to kidnap him, and everybody turned armed, but nobody fought,” says Amos Dagalo

Burhan accused the paramilitary leader of attempting to capture and kill him during an attempt to seize the presidential palace.

A proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire was put forward, and agreed upon, as gunfire rang out in the background.

“Sadly, he did not abide by (the ceasefire),” he added. “You can hear right now the attempts to storm the Army headquarters, and indiscriminate mortar attacks. The fight is being continued using the humanitarian pause.

“We are being attacked from all directions,” Dagalo said in a telephone interview on Sunday. We had to keep fighting to defend ourselves and we stopped fighting because the other side did not, he claimed.

The leader of the notorious Janjaweed forces in Sudan was implicated in a number of human rights violations.

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 has previously reported on how Russia and its military leaders have been engaged in gold trade with Sudan.

Some people stopped partnering with the US because of the UN mission’s policies. I felt sorry when I spoke with the best American and foreign diplomats, who also understood the international policy in Sudan wouldn’t work. They saw flaws but still felt powerless to revolt and were forced to carry out decisions made much higher up.

It was a moment of promise because there was hope for democracy. A carnival that protesters had blocked off to demand change took place in the middle of Khartoum. It was running on electricity.

But social movements such as the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) — the union behind the protest — often struggle to translate the momentum of their demonstrations into real political power.

Structural is part of the reason for this. Social movements such as the SPA are often based on grassroots activism. A dictator can arrest one or two leaders of an organization but not an entire country.

During the negotiations, the pro-democracy advocates had a lot of movement but it was stopped in June by the RSF soldiers. More than 100 people were killed.

I was told by Hamdok that revolutions came in cycles. The 2019 removal of Bashir was a high point of revolution, and he saw his job as making as many reforms as possible before the low tide of counterrevolution swept him away.

What did the RSF do against civilians? Political Revolutions – Sudanese versus Burhan’s government in the 1980s and 1990s

Soldiers did what they were ordered to do against civilians. I remember drinking tea with a soldier aligned with the RSF at his house in Darfur as he explained why he had recently participated in the burning down of a village from another ethnic group.

The soldier reasoned that a member of his tribe had been killed in an altercation, so the RSF-aligned forces took revenge by torching a village that had been home to 30,000 people. At least 163 people died.

Tensions between the SAF and RSF grew. Hemeti and the RSF were viewed as undisciplined by Burhan. Hemeti on the other hand believed that it was time for Darfur to lead Sudan.

The idea was to restart the transitional period, but I and many others argued it was shortsighted and wouldn’t work. The return of a government led by Burhan would not lead to a more free and democratic society. If the plan ended in a coup the first time, why would it work the second time?

It can be easy to look at the recent history of “revolutions” in countries such as Myanmar, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan and conclude that they eventually backfire. I don’t agree. I learned from Sudanese activists that a nation’s political fortune is an active battle.