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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS