Smoke rises over the city as army and paramilitary forces clash in a power struggle in Khartoum, Sudan.
Khartoum:
Sudan’s army made gains in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces on Sunday, launching airstrikes on their positions, and at least 59 civilians were killed, including three UN workers, witnesses said.
Fighting broke out on Saturday between army units loyal to the head of Sudan’s Transitional Governing Sovereign Council, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti. . Council’s
It was the first such outbreak since the two military joined forces to oust veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 and over a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition toward civilian rule. It was sprinkled.
The United Nations Mission in Sudan said Burhan and Hemedti agreed to a three-hour pause in fighting at 4 p.m. local time (1400 GMT to 1700 GMT) to allow a humanitarian evacuation as proposed by the United Nations, but a brief period The deal was widely ignored afterwards. relative calm.
As night fell, residents reported the rumble of cannons and the roar of warplanes in Bahri’s Kafouri district, which houses an RSF base across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum.
Witnesses told Reuters that the army was conducting airstrikes on RSF positions in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city, across the Nile, and in the Kafouri and Sharg el-Nil districts of nearby Bahri, causing RSF fighters to flee.
The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the African Union have appealed for an early end to hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.
Efforts by neighbors and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on Sunday. Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said on Twitter that Egypt offered to mediate, and the regional African Bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development Plans offered the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti to send Sudanese groups to the conflict as soon as possible.
The fighting broke out over the weekend following rising tensions over the integration of the RSF into the army. Disputes over the timetable for this have delayed the signing of an internationally backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy after a 2021 military coup.
clashes in khartoum
An army statement said fighting was ongoing around the military headquarters in central Khartoum, and said RSF troops were deploying snipers on buildings, but they were “being monitored and dealt with.”
Earlier on Sunday, witnesses and residents told Reuters the army carried out airstrikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region and managed to destroy most of the paramilitary’s facilities.
He said the army had wrested control of much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF, as both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles broke out on Sunday Was.
RSF members remained inside Khartoum International Airport besieged by the army, but it was holding back from harming them, witnesses said.
But a bigger problem, witnesses and residents said, was posed by thousands of heavily armed RSF members stationed inside the neighborhoods of Khartoum and other cities, which they had no authority to control.
“We are scared, we haven’t slept for 24 hours because of the noise and the house shaking. We are worried about running out of water and food, and medicine for my diabetic father,” Huda, a young resident of southern Khartoum told Reuters.
He said, “There is so much misinformation and everyone is lying. We don’t know when it will end, how it will end.”
A prolonged conflict could plunge Sudan into wider conflict as it grapples with economic misery and tribal violence, derailing efforts to build up to elections.
Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sought to shape events in Sudan, transitioning from the ousted powerful Bashir’s regime as a way to roll back Islamist influence and improve stability in the region. are doing away.
They have also invested in sectors including agriculture, where Sudan has huge potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
civilian casualties
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported that at least 56 civilians had been killed and 595 wounded, including combatants, since the start of the fighting.
Scores of military personnel died, the doctors’ committee said, without giving a specific number due to a lack of firsthand information from hospitals.
The UN World Food Program has temporarily suspended all operations in hunger-stricken areas of Sudan after three Sudanese workers were killed during fighting in northern Darfur and a WFP plane was shot down at Khartoum airport. Was.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the killings and demanded accountability.
“Those responsible must be brought to justice without delay,” Guterres said on Twitter. “Humanitarian workers are #NotATarget.”
Volker Perthes, the UN special envoy for Sudan and head of his country’s mission, said in a statement that he was concerned about reports of shelling and looting affecting UN and other humanitarian facilities.
Saudi state media said on Sunday that Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan bin al-Saud held separate phone calls with Burhan and Hemedti and called for an end to the military escalation. The minister reaffirmed Riyadh’s call for calm.
In a speech at an Arab League meeting on the crisis on Sunday, Sudan said the Sudanese should be allowed to reach an agreement internally without foreign interference.
The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF until the force was disbanded. The Army told soldiers affiliated with the RSF to report to nearby Army units, risking a reduction in RSF rank if they disobeyed.
RSF leader Hemedti, deputy head of state, called military chief Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”.
State television cut its broadcasts on Sunday afternoon, a move staff said meant to prevent propaganda broadcasts by the RSF meant it entered the main state broadcaster building in Omdurman and began airing pro-RSF programming.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)