Sudan’s army appeared to gain the upper hand on Sunday in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces, said witnesses.
One doctor’s group reported that the fighting in Sudan had killed at least 97 civilians and injured 365 others.
On Saturday, fighting broke out between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti). He is the deputy head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council.
It was the first such outbreak since both joined forces to oust Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019.
A disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of the transition towards civilian rule sparked the fighting.
Burhan and Hemedti
Burhan and Hemedti agreed on a three-hour pause in fighting from 4 p.m. local time (1400 GMT to 1700 GMT). This allows humanitarian evacuations proposed by the United Nations. But the deal was widely ignored after a brief period of relative calm.
Eyewitnesses told Reuters the army was renewing air strikes on RSF bases in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the Nile. And the Kafouri and Sharg el-Nil districts of adjacent Bahri, putting RSF fighters to flight.
The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UN Security Council, European Union and African Union have appealed for a quick end to the hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.
Efforts by neighbours and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on Sunday. Egypt offered to mediate, and the African regional bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development plans to send the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti as soon as possible to reconcile Sudanese groups in conflict. Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said on Twitter.
The eruption of fighting over the weekend followed rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military.
Discord over the timetable for that has delayed signing an internationally-backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy after a 2021 military coup.
Clashes in Khartoum
A statement by the army said there were ongoing clashes in the vicinity of military headquarters in central Khartoum, and said that RSF soldiers were stationing snipers on buildings, but that they were “monitored and being dealt with.”
On Sunday, witnesses and residents told Reuters that the army had carried out air strikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region. They managed to destroy most of the paramilitaries’ facilities.
They said the army had also wrested back control over much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF after both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles raged into Sunday.
RSF members remained inside Khartoum international airport besieged by the army but it was holding back from striking them to avoid wreaking major damage, witnesses said.