Gunfire ripped through several neighbourhoods of Sudan’s capital Khartoum on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr on Friday, after the army deployed on foot for the first time in its almost week-long fight with a paramilitary force.
Soldiers and gunmen from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shot at each other in residential areas of the north, west and centre of the city, including during the call for special early morning Eid prayers, witnesses said.
The unabated fighting has killed hundreds and undermined an effort by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to broker a temporary truce over the three-day holiday and allow civilians to reach safety.
In the absence of a ceasefire, foreign nations including the United States have been unable to evacuate their citizens from Sudan.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said on Thursday he saw “no other option but the military solution” to the power struggle with the paramilitary force that erupted into violence last weekend.
The conflict between two previously allied leaders of the ruling military junta, army chief Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, risks drawing in Sudan’s neighbours and could play into a regional competition between Russia and the United States.
The thud of heavy weaponry could also be heard across Khartoum and its sister cities, together with one of Africa’s biggest urban areas. Army troops brandishing semi-automatic weapons were greeted by cheers on one street, footage released by the military on Friday showed.
Reuters verified the location of the video, in the north of the city, but could not immediately verify when it was filmed.
The World Health Organization said at least 413 people have already been killed and thousands injured in the conflict, which has tipped Sudan into a humanitarian disaster, with hospitals under attack and up to 20,000 people fleeing into neighbouring Chad.
Even before the conflict, about a quarter of Sudan’s people were facing acute hunger. The U.N. World Food Programme halted its Sudan operation, one of its largest, on Saturday after three of its workers were killed.
The violence was triggered by disagreement over an internationally backed plan to form a new civilian government four years after the fall of autocrat Omar al-Bashir to mass protests, and two years after a military coup.
Both sides accuse the other of thwarting the transition.
DARFUR CASUALTIES
The RSF condemned the military for what it said were new assaults.
“At this moment, when citizens are preparing to receive the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the neighbourhoods of Khartoum are waking up to the bombings of aircraft and heavy artillery in a sweeping attack that is directly targeting residential neighbourhoods,” the RSF said early on Friday.
Thousands of civilians streamed out of Khartoum as gunfire and explosions sounded on Thursday. Large numbers also crossed into Chad to flee fighting in the western region of Darfur.
In El Fasher in North Darfur, a maternity hospital repurposed to treat casualties from fighting was overwhelmed and rapidly running out of supplies, said Cyrus Paye, coordinator for the aid group MSF which supports the facility. All other hospitals in the city were closed.
Most of the 279 wounded patients the hospital received since Saturday were civilians hit by stray bullets, many of them children, and 44 have died, he said.
Another doctors’ group said at least 26 people were killed and 33 were wounded El-Obeid city, west of Khartoum, on Thursday. Witnesses there described clashes and widespread looting.
Guterres, speaking to reporters after meeting virtually with the heads of the African Union, the Arab League and other organisations on Thursday, said: “There was a strong consensus on condemning ongoing fighting in Sudan and calling for the cessation of hostilities as an immediate priority”.
He said trapped civilians should be allowed to seek medical treatment, food and other supplies. The United States endorsed the ceasefire proposal.
Burhan told Al Jazeera he would support a truce on condition it allowed citizens to move freely, which he said the RSF had prevented.
FIGHTING IN KHARTOUM EXPLAINED
WHAT TRIGGERED THE VIOLENCE?
Tension had been building for months between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which together toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup.
The friction was brought to a head by an internationally-backed plan to launch a new transition with civilian parties. A final deal was due to be signed earlier in April, on the fourth anniversary of the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
Both the army and the RSF were required to cede power under the plan and two issues proved particularly contentious: one was the timetable for the RSF to be integrated into the regular armed forces, and the second was when the army would be formally placed under civilian oversight.
When fighting broke out on April 15, both sides blamed the other for provoking the violence. The army accused the RSF of illegal mobilisation in preceding days and the RSF, as it moved on key strategic sites in Khartoum, said the army had tried to seize full power in a plot with Bashir loyalists.
WHO ARE THE MAIN PLAYERS ON THE GROUND?
The protagonists in the power struggle are General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the army and leader of Sudan’s ruling council since 2019, and his deputy on the council, RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.
As the plan for a new transition developed, Hemedti aligned himself more closely with civilian parties from a coalition, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), that shared power with the military between Bashir’s overthrow and the 2021 coup.
Diplomats and analysts said this was part of a strategy by Hemedti to transform himself into a statesman. Both the FFC and Hemedti, who grew wealthy through gold mining and other ventures, stressed the need to sideline Islamist-leaning Bashir loyalists and veterans who had regained a foothold following the coup and had deep roots in the army.
Along with some pro-army rebel factions that benefited from a 2020 peace deal, the Bashir loyalists opposed the deal for a new transition.
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
The popular uprising had raised hopes that Sudan and its population of 46 million could emerge from decades of autocracy, internal conflict and economic isolation under Bashir.
The current fighting could not only destroy those hopes but destabilise a volatile region bordering the Sahel, the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.
It could also play into competition for influence in the region between Russia and the United States, and between regional powers who have courted different actors in Sudan.
WHAT’S THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTORS?
Western powers, including the United States, had swung behind a transition towards democratic elections following Bashir’s overthrow. They suspended financial support following the coup, then backed the plan for a new transition and a civilian government.
Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back Islamist influence and bolster stability in the region.
Gulf states have pursued investments in sectors including agriculture, where Sudan holds vast potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
Russia has been seeking to build a naval base on the Red Sea, while several UAE companies have been signing up to invest, with one UAE consortium inking a preliminary deal to build and operate a port and another UAE-based airline agreeing with a Sudanese partner to create a new low-cost carrier based in Khartoum.
Burhan and Hemedti both developed close ties to Saudi Arabia after sending troops to participate in the Saudi-led operation in Yemen. Hemedti has struck up relations with other foreign powers including the UAE and Russia.
Egypt, itself ruled by military man President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who overthrew his Islamist predecessor, has deep ties to Burhan and the army and recently promoted a parallel track of political negotiations through parties with stronger links to the army and to Bashir’s former government.
WHAT ARE THE SCENARIOS?
International parties have called for humanitarian ceasefires and a return to dialogue, but there have been few signs of compromise from the warring factions or lulls in the fighting.
The army has branded the RSF a rebel force and demanded its dissolution, while Hemedti has called Burhan a criminal and blamed him for visiting destruction on the country.
Though Sudan’s army has superior resources including air power and an estimated 300,000 troops, the RSF expanded into a force of at least 100,000 troops that had deployed across Khartoum and its neighbouring cities, as well as in other regions, raising the spectre of protracted conflict on top of a long-running economic crisis and existing, large-scale humanitarian needs.
The RSF can draw on the support and tribal ties in the western region of Darfur, where it emerged from militias that fought alongside government forces to crush rebels in a brutal war that escalated after 2003.
