Fighting in Sudan yesterday raged for a second day in battles between rival generals in control since their 2021 coup, leaving at least 56 civilians dead, hundreds wounded and sparking international alarm.
Three World Food Programme staff were also killed in the Darfur region, UN Special Representative to Sudan Volker Perthes said.
Explosions and intense gunfire rattled buildings in Khartoum’s densely populated northern and southern suburbs as tanks rumbled on the streets and fighter jets roared overhead, witnesses said.
Photo: AFP
Violence erupted early on Saturday morning after weeks of deepening tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the large and heavily armed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with each accusing the other of starting the fight.
Both sides say they control key sites, with state television broadcasting patriotic songs with no commentary.
Daglo’s RSF said they have seized the presidential palace, Khartoum International Airport and other strategic sites, but the army said they are in charge, with the air force late on Saturday urging people to stay indoors as it continued airstrikes targeting RSF bases.
Footage obtained by Agence France-Presse showed heavy smoke billowing from a building near the army headquarters in Khartoum, with the military saying a building had “caught fire” amid the clashes, but that it had been contained.
Created in 2013, the RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir unleashed against non-Arab ethnic minorities in the western Darfur region a decade earlier, drawing accusations of war crimes.
The RSF’s planned integration into the regular army was a key element of talks to finalize a deal that would return the country to civilian rule and end the political-economic crisis sparked by the military’s 2021 coup.
“The total number of deaths among civilians reached 56,” the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said, adding that there were also “tens of deaths” among security forces, as well as about 600 wounded.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities.”
The African Union is to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday, as is the Arab League, following a request by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
However, the two generals appear in no mood for talks.
In an interview with United Arab Emirates-based Sky News Arabia, Daglo, also known as Hemeti, said, “Burhan the criminal must surrender.”
The army declared the RSF a “rebel militia,” saying there “will be no negotiations or talks until the dissolution” of the group.
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